


For the sake of a simple thing

by concernedlily



Series: A simple thing [1]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Gen, Harry and his colleagues, M/M, OCs (Kingsman staff), Rentboy Eggsy, Undercover, content warnings, spy Eggsy, spymaster Harry, unsexy rentboy sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-08 19:12:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 17
Words: 58,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7769770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concernedlily/pseuds/concernedlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dean Baker's far-right group start to branch out into domestic terrorism, MI5 and the Met hand over to Kingsman - and hand over his seventeen-year-old stepson to Harry to run as a spy in Baker's house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is (mostly) finished and will be posted once to twice a week! (Chapter numbers may end up +/-1). As the tags say, this story includes underage rentboy Eggsy: please see the content warnings in the endnotes if you think you may have an issue and feel free to get in touch with me for more information (here or [tumblr](http://concernedlily.tumblr.com)).

“Who’s that?” Harry said, sliding into his seat at the Table at Arthur’s right hand (slightly late, but no more than that, and not deserving of the shitty look Merlin was giving him).

“Good of you to join us, Galahad,” Arthur said sourly. “ _That_ -” a mugshot on the screen of a teenaged boy wearing very short hair and a surly expression - “is your new friend.”

Merlin gave him a smirking look that said, eloquently, that this was what he got for being late.

“And what have I done to deserve this unlooked-for honour?” Harry said.

“This is young Mister Gary Unwin,” Merlin said. “Known as Eggsy. The stepson of one Dean Baker, of Walworth.”

The picture was replaced by that of a loutish, middle-aged man, with a scarred, cruel rice-pudding face. “Baker?” Harry said, and glanced at the briefing note in front of him on the table. “He looks vaguely familiar.”

“He was a minor part of the English Defence League circle you broke up in ‘96,” Merlin confirmed. “Went quiet for a while, got into the drugs trade and satisfied himself with that for a while, but with the recent tensions around Brexit he seems to have made himself ringleader of another bunch of white power idiots. Police suspect them of a number of assaults and petty vandalisms over the last year or so. They were questioning one of his mob recently who let slip something big is in the works but they haven't been able to find out more.”

“You believe this Eggsy is a way in?” Arthur asked.

“I do,” Merlin said grimly, and Harry felt a flicker of interest. Merlin looked after the proposals, when there was rare occasion to recruit, and everyone knew he was a soft touch for a youngster he didn’t think was getting a fair shake of things.

The screen changed to a rotating show of seven or eight frames from greeny, grainy CCTV cameras. The boy hanging around on the street and then getting into a car: two different datestamps, three different cars.

“He’s working as a prostitute?” Arthur said.

Merlin stopped the slideshow on one picture and zoomed in on the face. Even with the unfortunate pixellation of the handsome features, his expression as he got into the car, where the punter couldn’t see, was clear: pure rage, of the kind that took years to build up and burnt out only very slowly, if at all.

“Strictly speaking, yes. His father died in Afghanistan when he was small. His mother remarried Baker about seven years ago, which was also about the last time the young Eggsy wasn’t finding himself regularly in trouble. Petty theft, anti-social behaviour, stealing cars, already a drugs offence, possession rather than dealing. Almost certainly all in service to the family business. This,” he nodded at the screen, “is a new string to his bow.”

“Doesn’t look like he’s particularly enjoying being the heir apparent,” Harry said. 

Merlin said, “His illustrious and growing criminal record is matched by a rather unpleasant record of hospital attendance. As a result, our assessment is that he might be… amenable to telling some tales.”

“A potential spy right in Baker’s home,” Harry said thoughtfully. He looked back at the screen. He wasn’t terribly interested in young people, as a rule, but he did enjoy potential and he hated to see it wasted on a wretch like Baker.

“Given the boy’s age, we’ve agreed with MI5 that Kingsman will take on running him,” Merlin said. As ever: there was a rather obvious way in right there and the national intelligence agencies picking up rentboys for Queen and country wouldn't quite look the thing on the front page of the Daily Mail.

Arthur glanced at him. Harry said, “Glad to help,” neutrally.

***

There was plenty to be done before they would be ready to approach Eggsy but Harry believed in learning by doing, so two evenings later he took himself off to what Merlin had identified as Eggy’s place of work.

He pulled up round the back of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens - far enough from the estate where Eggsy lived for his pride, close enough to the pub where Dean drank to be kept an eye on - about half eleven at night and cast his eyes over the choice.

He wasn’t in the business of sympathy, but it was hard not to have some pity for the young things already bruised by life who cast sidelong glances at the car (a Peugeot 406, to stay inconspicuous; the things Harry did for his work) and sidled up when he made it obvious he was in the market; if one wanted a happy sex worker these days one found them on the internet, not the street.

Eggsy wasn’t there, which was all well and good. He picked one of the ones along Eggsy’s line of things, wearing one of those terrible American stiff baseball caps and sports gear, stocky and muscled beneath, rather than the twinkier, slight boys with lots of skin showing and hair regrettably like an Anish Kapoor sculpture. 

He took the boy to the Holiday Inn down the road, laid back and thought of England while receiving a reasonably skilled blowjob, and was kind afterwards. He paid over the odds, tipped as well, and sent the boy sauntering out ready to gossip to his colleagues.

All that and home on his own sofa in time for brandy and Newsnight on the video: not a bad evening’s work, if he did say so himself.

***

He returned the next evening. Eggsy was there, slouched against a wall and casting unforgiving looks at the cars going by from under the brim of his horrible cap. Last night's young man loped over hopefully and Harry gave a polite apology and explained that he'd had a lovely time, but this evening would be going in a different direction.

Eggsy was watching; when he saw Harry's gaze he smirked and put his hands in his pockets in a way that outlined his crotch. But he didn't move off the wall, unlike the two or three others now crowding round the car and chattering at Harry.

That was fine: for the best, actually, as Harry didn't technically have permission yet to make contact. Was this his usual behaviour? Interesting, that he let other boys take a new customer out for a test run first. But then Eggsy did at least have a roof over his head, whatever happened to him under it; he wasn't desperate.

He let his gaze linger on Eggsy for another few moments and then selected the boy whose innuendo was at least mildly amusing, and returned to the Holiday Inn for a repeat of last night's performance. The blowjob was slightly worse but the conversation slightly better so it all evened out.

He stayed over that night, preparing a cover for if Eggsy or anyone associated with him should come asking questions later. Kingsman’s logistics team had made a block booking earlier that day under the name Harry Morgan, one of Harry’s longest-running and most ordinary aliases. If anyone asked or went googling they would find the quiet, blameless life of a Midlands-based medical supplies salesman. Harry was quite fond of Harry Morgan, and was pleased to be able to give him an exciting new hobby of picking up young men of negotiable affection.

He was prepared to admit to a few wistful thoughts for his own comfortable bed and bathroom and his own things around him, but he'd slept in much worse conditions than a London chain hotel in Kingsman's name so no point being bothered about it.

In the morning he put his suit back on and went whistling out. The reception staff nudged one another as he passed. Word had got round then and he wondered what they cared about most: that he was picking up rentboys and bringing them back or that he was tipping the hotel staff extravagantly to ignore it? The money, probably, which was as it should be. People noticed less when their eyes were full of pound signs.

He was in HQ by 10am and went straight up to his private rooms to change into clean clothes, popped into the dining room for a pastry and a cup of coffee, and went up for the latest briefing on the Baker operation.

He walked into the library and paused to see only Merlin there, none of the government agents or analysts he’d expected.

“Did you tell me the meeting was early so I’d be on time?” he said. He took a seat in the loose semi-circle of armchairs oriented unobtrusively towards one of the bookcases, which creaked obediently into life and produced a flatscreen.

“No,” Merlin said. “I told you there was a meeting now that isn’t until this afternoon. _This_ meeting is especially for you.” He pressed a button on the arm of his chair.

The door clicked, as if an automatic locking mechanism had engaged. The flatscreen flickered to life.

A PowerPoint started. Harry knew it was PowerPoint because of the clipart, and the way the title whizzed obnoxiously onto the screen. It said _How Galahad will improve his intra-agency co-operative behaviours so this operation won’t turn out like the last one_.

“Rather nice, isn’t it?” Merlin said. “Some of the youths knocked it up in the pub last night. I think you’re going to enjoy it.”

“This is a waste of my time,” he pointed out.

“No more or less than the blowjobs were,” Merlin said. Harry glared at him. Merlin knew perfectly well the blowjobs had been passable at best.

“I have a gun, you know,” he said.

“Won’t help you,” Merlin said, already scribbling on his tablet and starting to get that happy, glazed look that meant he was thinking of interesting new ways to deliver death unto those in need. “The door’s locked automatically until the presentation finishes.”

Harry frowned and sat back. The presentation played a cheerful little jingle as it flipped to the next slide and bullets started to drop in, on the theme of _Remarks Galahad will not make to MI5 as their not realising until later that they are rude is not an excuse_.

“I didn’t think the last one was that bad,” he said.

“No.”

***

Harry went into the meeting with the intra-agency operational team appropriately chastened. The saving grace was that Lancelot had been tapped to provide Kingsman support, barring any higher priority leads, and he was cheerful, bombastic and thick-skinned as only the upper-class and emotionally dim could be, so Harry had a suitable target for his irritation and could restrain himself from the government personnel without Merlin shooting him with a sedative dart.

As an additional sweetener, Merlin had unbent enough to promise him a mission somewhere with good snow if he behaved nicely to MI5 and the Met. Therefore, Harry forebore.

The domestic security lead, Stephens, was the greyest man Harry had ever met, possessing allthe charisma and cheap suiting of an office block in Slough, and with, in Harry's professional eye, two cats at home whom his wife preferred, a liking for rugby league, and a predilection for autoerotic asphyxiation unsafely practiced that would probably get him into trouble one day.

His counterpart from the Met was Asher: an extremely sharp blonde bob and immaculate matte red lips, difficult to get a read on, although Harry would have confidently laid bets on a holiday home in Chiantishire and a discreet tattoo or three.

They'd each brought a bag-carrier of the usual sort, appalling taste in shoes and steel-trap ambition where a personality ought to be. The type Chester continually tried to get into Kingsman, unfortunately, so far thwarted by Merlin's ongoing campaign to adapt the entrance competition to his own values, which Harry found much more suitable; someone who would sell their own grandmother to get an advantage wasn't what Harry wanted at his back in the field.

"Pleased to have you on board, gentlemen," Asher said briskly. Her functionary put her second cup of coffee in front of her, and some lavender shortbread. That was government people for you, they fell on any kind of catering like locusts. He'd seen one of the aides casting envious looks around the shop's meeting room, which wasn't even as plush as the Table room where most internal business took place. "I suppose you've read our briefing?"

Harry had. It had been pages and pages long, and there'd been another one just the same from MI5. Not that Kingsman didn't have its reporting requirements, but here at least they didn't think the production of a document was the same as actually achieving something.

“I have," he said. Merlin narrowed his eyes at him across the table and Harry gave him an innocent look back. “Interesting take on Baker’s gang’s recent escalation, I thought.”

“We can’t confirm the French connection yet,” Stephens said. He rapped his pen three times against the table, arrhythmic; an unusually blunt tell for a spook. “Our colleagues in SIS have provided a summary of the group we think they’ve become associated with, out of the Parisian banlieues. There’s been a great deal of unrest there since the end of the restrictions of the EU right to work for the Romanians.” He inclined his head and his colleague filled in quietly, “In appendix three.”

“Oh yes,” James said. “The appendices. Excellent bedtime reading.” He was skimming the pages in question with the sheepish air of a man who'd skipped them the first time.

Stephens gave him the polite look of the terminally humourless; Asher thinned her lips. Heedless, James said, “But you feel there’s a targeting here of the Polish community?”

“It seems likely,” Stephens said. “We’ve set out the case for it. It’s in -”

“The appendices,” Harry repeated and couldn’t quite suppress a sigh. “Of course.”

“Going by Facebook and gossip, Baker’s people consider their rightful jobs, homes and benefits to be going to migrants, specifically eastern Europeans,” Asher said. “Nothing new, but after recent events there’s been… escalation.”

“To come to the point, then,” James said, visibly giving up on the briefings. “Gary. Or - what’s that odd name he uses - Eggsy. He’s very young, to be relied on with all this at stake.”

Stephens flinched. Scruples, Harry wondered, at using a young man in such a way? Or teenaged children at home, perhaps. Or merely - oh yes, there it was, his gaze dragging unwillingly to Harry and looking him up and down - one of those old-fashioned homophobes who thought all gay men fancied small boys as a matter of course. He held Stephens' gaze and gave him a smile, full of teeth.

"Needs must," Asher said. She'd noticed something too; she directed her words to Stephens and he shrank in his seat. "Electronic surveillance isn't working on this group. They live on the same estate and are constantly in and out of each other's houses, they don't email, they're barely online, they swap stolen phones and SIM cards, they hardly travel outside their postcode, they use cash..."

"Hence the retreat to good old-fashioned spywork," Merlin said. "It's obviously a risk, trying to run Eggsy. But if he's amenable, there's no better opportunity."

"No reason he shouldn't be amenable," Asher said. "His current - occupation provides the ideal cover to approach him, and then spend time with him and pay him for his information. And no doubt it would appeal to a young man's ego, this James Bond sort of thing."

She cast around a disdainful look which encompassed the paintings, the biscuits, Stephens (who was about the least James Bond thing Harry could imagine), Merlin's glasses, and for a grand finale, James; who was, it had to be said, looking particularly rakish and louche with a new, non-regulationally garish tie and discreetly whitened teeth.

"Oh yes, that's sure to have a good outcome," James said. "A young man with James Bond fantasies." 

Harry knew for an absolute fact James had seen every one of the Daniel Craig Bonds no fewer than four times in the cinema. "That's not why he'll do it," he said. He leaned back in his chair and looked levelly at each of the others round the table. "He hates Baker. He'll do it for the satisfaction of bringing him down. He's very bright, going by his records." He gave Stephens a glinting look. "I expect working with him to be... a pleasure."

"I would agree with that," Merlin said into the brief, appalled silence. "That assessment of Eggsy's motivation," he clarified hurriedly. "There's nothing in his history to suggest he agrees with Baker and the man's not had a good impact on his life."

"How do you plan to bring him in?" Asher said, directing it to Harry. "Once you've established yourself with him we could pull him in off the street, have you come in to play good cop and tell him what we want. It sounds like we're free to offer some future considerations." She glanced at Stephens, who nodded slightly.

"He might not be happy about the deception," James observed. "Not having been so - er - personally involved, shall we say, already."

"We need some time to assess him before trying to bring him in," Asher said, dismissing the concern. "I’m sure Agent Galahad knows what he’s talking about, but if we did try to turn Unwin immediately and he told tales to Baker it would mean months of work wasted, and they’d go completely underground. I've no doubt he'll see how it'll go better for him if he co-operates." There was no warmth in her words that Harry could find. Maybe she thought a few extra blowjobs weren't of much consequence to a prostitute.

"And it does offer a potential for leverage that other methods don't," Stephens added. Christ, he was true to form, practical to the end; plenty of sympathy for besmirched youth, until there was a benefit in it.

"I'd prefer to leave these decisions for now," Harry said, suddenly quite cross with the conversation. This was why he liked to work alone. "I haven't even met him yet. I find agents easiest to run on instinct, not by committee."

They all looked at one another. Asher nodded assent, after a few moments; Stephen echoed it.

"Well, then," James said brightly. "I think that's that."

"Actually," Stephens said, "if everyone could turn to appendix six, we have some suggestions about governance of this operation..."

"So do we," Asher said. "Appendix three."

Harry sighed. Merlin kicked him under the table.

***

With Kingsman now involved and motoring things forward nicely, it didn’t take long for the operation to actually manage to evolve to the point where he had the go-ahead to pick up Eggsy and start the delicate process of getting the lad used to him.

He checked into his room at the Holiday Inn with a smile and a slightly too ostentatious flash of the cash he'd be tipping the staff with at checkout time. He went out and got himself a decent Chinese takeaway and brought it back to his room. Then, when it was late enough, he got back in the tragic car and drove round along the railway line to where the boys set out their stalls.

Eggsy was there. The two boys from two weeks ago hung around the car hopefully, with a couple more of their colleagues. Harry made some minimal conversation, letting his gaze get drawn to Eggsy every so often.

It still interested him, the way Eggsy held himself apart from the other boys. Above it all, or merely not very community minded? He didn't see Eggsy look back at him at all, but when the crowd finally drifted off, disappointed, Eggsy hoicked himself immediately off the wall he'd been holding up and came straight over to the car.

"All right, grandad," he said, the impudent little brute. Christ, Harry could have wiped the floor with him three times before his morning coffee and still had the energy to cook a full breakfast. 

Still, he wasn’t trying to frighten the boy. And up close, in person, there was actually something quite special about his greenish-blue eyes, the straight proud shoulders, a classic jawline under the youthful roundedness; he probably had his pick of the clientele, when he cared for it. Maybe the other boys avoided him, rather than the other way around. His smile was lovely too, gleaming from a showy slow lick of his lips.

Meant, presumably, to distract the slavering john from the eyes, flat and hard and not smiling at all.

"Hello," Harry said. "I'm Harry. And you…?"

"Gary," Eggsy said. "Guess I'm a poet and I don't know it."

Harry nodded. Gary, was it? He evidently wasn't attached to his real name, not to have simply picked a meaningless pseudonym. 

"Hello, Gary," he said. "I've got a hotel room nearby."

"Seventy for a blowjob," Eggsy said indifferently. Harry reached over and unlocked the passenger door.

He made gentle overtures on the way back to the Holiday Inn, just some light small talk. Eggsy exerted himself sufficiently to produce an opinion on whether it might rain tomorrow and then, slightly more enthusiastically, the footie. Harry didn't particularly care for football himself, having grown up in a cricket county, but it was a valuable conversation topic with people from all walks of life so he kept himself informed, enough to hold up his end until they got back to the hotel. Eggsy showed very early promise in how he reacted to Harry, clever enough to follow Harry’s lead and respond to what he showed interest in rather than what he said; he could read people a little, at least, which would be useful: necessary, if things came to the worst.

He'd got a ground floor room, to help Eggsy feel comfortable, and indeed as he ushered the boy inside he could see him case the small, sterile space with one long look, taking in the exits. Eggsy's shoulders were slightly too stiff, his chin high, but to a casual observer he gave off every impression of being fine. Harry appreciated a person who kept up a good show under pressure. Eggsy was young for it but evidently he'd had cause to learn.

Eggsy appeared to finish his look at the room and turned around with a wary look, evidently having clocked the lack of any luggage or sign of possession of the room. “Not staying long, then?”

“No,” Harry said. He would never pass for completely harmless, not after thirty years in Kingsman; he'd gone through too much not to hold himself a little apart from the world. But he could project that he wasn't a specific threat and he noticed Eggsy respond unconsciously to the subtle reassurance Harry was telegraphing through his body. “I have my own home. North of the river.”

“Oh, right,” Eggsy said, and the look on his face went complicated before he wiped it off: a bit of expectations lived down to, a bit of anger, a bit of pity, surprisingly. He’d obviously reached his own conclusions. Harry wondered briefly what kind of wife Eggsy’s imagination had assigned to him. Somebody sweet and ignorant, possibly. Eggsy’s own mother appeared at the hospital occasionally, in police records never; Baker didn’t involve her in his work or his hobbies.

"So..." Eggsy said, dragging it out so his mouth formed a lovely circle, just right for tempting a man to put his cock in. Harry found himself watching it despite himself.

"So," he said, and allowed that sliver of appreciation to show in his eyes, heat his tone. 

Eggsy licked his lips and said, "Seventy quid...?"

“I don’t want a blowjob,” Harry said, impulsively. There was something about Eggsy that was quite different from the practiced, seductive subservience of the two boys last week; something fatalistic and brittle, giving Harry a sudden sharp intimation of teeth.

Eggsy’s face went shuttered immediately and Harry rocked back and spread his fingers out by his thighs; Eggsy reacted to the body language like - like a young man who was used to older, bigger men presenting him with physical threat.

Harry watched him glance around, assure himself that he definitely had a clear run to the door; Harry had been careful not to place himself in the way of it. So the boy was a quick thinker, and bright enough to focus on escape over a defence or attack he couldn’t hope to emerge from unscathed. It all took mere moments: if Harry weren’t trained to notice such things, control such things, the complicated interplay would have gone by mostly below real awareness.

By the time Eggsy said carelessly, “Anything weird’s extra,” Harry very nearly believed he’d seen and done everything and was entirely ready to tackle any request Harry might have.

“I like to watch,” Harry said. 

“To watch…” Eggsy said uncertainly, then flushed. “Right, yeah. Like, you wanna watch… me… wank.” He kept his gaze on Harry while he spoke, testing the words; they ticked up at the end, shook into a question instead of a statement.

“Yes,” Harry said. “Is that a service you provide?”

“Er. I suppose so," Eggsy said, looking discomfited, then said hurriedly, "no money off though."

“That’s not a problem,” Harry said. Chucking money at Eggsy more or less indiscriminately wasn’t an issue. Actually it was quite desirable, getting him used to the money from a regular, lower risk john before revealing that there was plenty more where that came from if he was able to be of service in other ways.

“Call it a hundred, then,” Eggsy said challengingly.

"Yes, of course," Harry said. He pulled a leather wallet out of his jacket pocket. It was carefully broken in and filled by the Kingsman Identity team with odds and ends, cards in the right name and photographs and notes suitable for his cover. He flicked £200 out into a neat fold and held it out to Eggsy; Eggsy's eyes were on his fingers. "Here you go."

Eggsy shoved it in his pocket. Counting it along with Harry, then, when he'd watched. "Cheers, guv," he said, and tipped Harry a smile and a wink that were very nearly a good approximation of real.

He was more comfortable with money in his pocket, and better with an atmosphere turning sexual than with the small talk in the car or the negotiation, Harry thought; perhaps he liked situations he felt were under his control. 

"Why don't you sit on the bed?" Eggsy prompted, getting down to business.

“I can sit on a chair if you’d be more comfortable on the bed yourself,” Harry offered.

He’d been thinking about comfort; Eggsy was apparently still thinking about the door. “That’s okay,” he said. “Your show, innit? I’ll just sit down here on this chair.”

The act itself was - fine. Eggsy barely undressed, kept his wretched hat on and just pushed his tracksuit bottoms and tight boxer briefs down a bit to expose a cock that grew to respectable size as he pulled at it in a way that made Harry wince; had he been so harsh on himself as a young man? Well, probably.

Eggsy shut his eyes after a minute, which was good as it let Harry politely avert his. A short time passed while Harry put together his grocery shopping list for the weekend, and the short bitten-off gasps he’d been making became an airless groan and the piquant scent of semen crowded the air as Eggsy came over his fist.

Harry got up. He picked up a box of tissues from the bedside table and took them over, putting them on the dining table next to Eggsy and sparing an apology to the guardians of good manners for the boy’s bare arse on the wooden seat. He himself was almost totally soft; let Eggsy draw whatever conclusions he liked from that, if he bothered to check.

Eggsy looked up at him as he started to retreat, with a mildly startled expression and soft gaze that made him look pre-Raphaelite. Harry was arrested by it, caught in a fragile moment of connection between them.

“You’re not going to -” Eggsy said, with a helpfully lewd gesture.

“Not now," Harry said. “Thank you. It was lovely.” It came out sounding like it felt, which was deeply absurd.

Eggsy flickered an ironic look at him. He said, "You don't have to thank me, bruv. You already paid." 

He’d wiped off his hand and tucked himself away, and now clearly wanted to leave. Harry had established himself as someone essentially harmless, with unusual but straightforward desires and a possibility of developing a profitable attachment; it was enough for a first encounter.

"Can I drive you somewhere?" Harry said politely.

" _No_ ," Eggsy said, the first clear sign of unhappiness since Harry had picked him up. "Er - no, thanks. Don't trouble yourself. There's a bus from just outside."

"All right," Harry said. He sat back down on the bed, shuffled himself up it to carefully give the most non-threatening impression he could. _I'm settled here; you can leave._ "Well, this was very nice, Gary. I’d very much like to see you again, if you’d be interested. I'm here tomorrow.” 

There was a hesitation; Eggsy stared directly at him, gaze distrustful, for a good thirty seconds, clearly weighing up what he considered a not negligible level of weirdness against the money. He had no poker face whatsoever. They'd have to work on that.

"Yeah, all right," Eggsy said eventually. He patted lightly at his pocket, once, so it was plain enough what had decided him. Harry could almost see the sums, his working out what a guaranteed income the next night would mean.

In an uncharacteristic moment of sentimentality Harry hoped it meant he would go home tonight, instead of back out for more work; he'd had such a visceral reaction to Harry's offer of a lift it seemed plain that he wished to be alone. "Not back round the Gardens though. I'll come here. Nine o'clock?"

Harry smiled. "That would be fine. I’ll be here."

"Great," Eggsy said. He looked at Harry and seemed to make a decision, then crawled onto the bed and kissed Harry on the cheek, quickly, bounced back up again. It made him suddenly young - suddenly his age - under the flinty world-weariness of the rentboy. "Bye."

"Bye," Harry said.

The door clicked behind Eggsy. Harry went into the bathroom and washed his hands, ran water into the plastic glass and took a long drink.

Then he went out and picked up the spectacles that had been resting on the bedside table and put them on.

"What do you think?" he said. 

There was a contemplative silence. Merlin said, "I think this is actually going to work."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the [content notes/trigger warnings](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7769770#work_endnotes) in the endnotes have been updated. Thank you to everyone who gave this story a go :).

Harry went out of the hotel as if he were going to work, leaving the car and walking up to Vauxhall with the other commuters. Not that anyone would be asking questions yet, or even that Baker's interest would ever be caught so much, but it was good to solidify the cover in case. 

About to catch a bus up towards the shop, he reconsidered at the sight of the crush of people spilling from the Tube and train stations and decided to spend the day at home instead. It was overcast, breezy, the gleaming glass of St George Wharf dull against the grey sky, the SIS Building squatting orange and angry next to it over a rising grey river. A day for walking.

It was a couple of miles to get home, with a cut through Sloane Square and a quick browse through the homewares in Peter Jones. Harry didn't think of much, focusing on his steady breaths in and out, in tune with his stride, and on the comforting, mildly obscene soundtrack of the city.

When he got in he put his house clothes on, made himself coffee and toast, and settled down with his tablet, switching his status to 'standby' on the Kingsman IM and flicking through the broadsheets' websites.

By the time he'd finished he still felt vaguely dissatisfied with life, but couldn't have said why. He spent most of the day pottering, doing some little jobs he'd been putting off in the garden and round the house, noshing on fruit and cheese and crackers when he felt peckish and starting to make vague notes about redoing the kitchen.

By the time he was putting suit and tie on ready to go back to the hotel as if he'd been at the office all day, the sense of disquiet had dissipated.

He realised he was quite looking forward to seeing Eggsy again. Eggsy hadn't charmed, hadn't especially impressed, but there was - something there, something about him, a rough charisma, hints of a complicated young mind. Harry wanted to know more.

***

He left a laptop shut on the table as a vague hint at work not yet completed, to explain the takeaway he was only partway through when Eggsy turned up, punctual at five to nine.

"Oh, hello," he said. "Is that the time already? Do come in.”

Eggsy stepped into the room. He gave Harry a long look, cool and assessing. Harry was in shirtsleeves today, and he didn’t think he was imagining Eggsy’s gaze following the curve of Harry’s musculature evident beneath the fine white cotton.

"That's okay," Eggsy said. "D'you want me to go - or come back later?"

"No, that’s fine," Harry said, deciding to let a bit of keenness show. "Although -” he glanced at the laptop, “I’ve got a bit of work to finish. Are you in a rush?”

"Okay," Eggsy said. “I mean, I’m not in a rush. Whatever.”

"Would you like something to eat?" Harry offered. "There's plenty. I got too much."

It was a not very good chicken korma but he'd seen Eggsy taking an appreciative deep breath of the smell when he'd come in, a hungry look in his eyes. He wasn't underfed, but there wasn't much spare on his stocky frame and he did have the slightly ashy look of someone with only passing acquaintance with the vegetable aisle.

"Yeah, sound," Eggsy said readily. Harry pulled a chair out for him without thinking about it, which got him an astounded look and - was that a giggle? Dear God. So Eggsy was capable of softness, even silliness, if he could be surprised into it.

Harry smiled at him and Eggsy shuffled his chair into the table, moving away, and picked up Harry’s fork. Harry sat down opposite, opened up the laptop, and started typing, so Eggsy wouldn’t feel under surveillance. 

Eggsy ate neatly - although with terrible form, all HKLP and sawing at a piece of chicken with elbows out - but quickly. By the time Harry judged enough time had passed for Eggsy to have got comfortable and be focusing on the food instead of Harry he’d demolished as much again of the korma as Harry himself and was on his third naan. The money Harry had tactfully left stacked neatly on the table near the food had disappeared into one of his many pockets.

"So," Eggsy said as he finished off the naan, with the air of one resigned to a social duty. "You busy at work, then?"

Harry let himself look mildly pleased at Eggsy's bothering to ask - anything up to a weak observation on the room's decor would have done, but it was nice that he had some interest in the world and people around him. "Quite busy, yes. Just an R&D proposal.” (From Merlin’s team, for an amphibious car. Harry’s views were that he didn’t particularly see the use, but that they could do what they liked as long as they didn’t touch any of the Aston Martins. Or the Jags. Or the Bentleys).

Eggsy's eyes had glazed over at the words 'R&D'; well, Harry could hardly blame him for that: it didn’t have the ring of ‘amphibious car’. Eggsy nodded, evidently reaching for something to say, and settled on, "Oh... right. Yeah, great."

Articulacy could be taught, Harry reminded himself. As could conversation. They needed Eggsy more for his ability to listen, anyway; he didn't need to be a chatterer.

"Do you enjoy it?" Eggsy said. "Your job?"

"I do," Harry said truthfully. "It has very clear markers of success. I like that." It was the high stakes of his kind of success he liked, but he could hardly say that. 

"Sounds nice," Eggsy said. Of course when it came to a job well done there wasn't much that was more obvious than a mouthful of come, but he'd be surprised if Eggsy considered that a perk. "Is it the same tonight then?"

Harry nodded assent and thought about staying where he was, but Eggsy looked between him and the bed and seemed to prefer the greater distance, so he moved to the same position as the previous night.

Eggsy pushed his chair away from the table, gripping it with fingers that were white-knuckled for just a moment too long. Harry felt an unwelcome pang of conscience; teenage boys were hardly paragons of romance, but it was still a shame to see someone like Eggsy so completely inured to what he ought still be discovering as the pleasures of sex with a partner.

“If you’re quite ready,” he said anyway. His voice was softer than he might have intended and Eggsy looked at him from under his lashes, his expression losing its tightness.

Eggsy bared about as much as the previous night but kept his eyes open this time, so Harry tried to show a bit more interest. He thought about the last time he'd picked up a man, a handsome Egyptian he'd met at an exhibition at the Royal Academy and with whom he'd enjoyed a hard and mutually satisfying fuck; his cock stiffened and made an obvious bulge in the line of his trousers, and he knew his eyes came alive with remembered pleasure.

Eggsy looked satisfied, made the same long, breathy whine, and came.

"Thank you," Harry said.

Eggsy's lips quirked, although he didn't repeat the reminder that he'd been paid. He picked up a handful of the paper napkins from the takeaway and dabbed at himself. His hands were quite small, Harry noticed, pale and soft. He said, "Thanks for the grub."

"Not at all," Harry said. Eggsy slumped gently in his chair, one hand encircling the other wrist in an unconsciously protective pose that made it hard for Harry to decide what to say.

Finally he said, "The food - I'm not sure I'd go back there. Is there anywhere nearby you'd recommend?" A basic tenet of NLP: having someone do you a favour did much more to make them like you than your doing a favour for them.

With Eggsy, who was already inclined to prickliness, being asked for advice on a neutral topic made him visibly unbend. One exhaustive rundown of the nearby fast food outlets later - ending, inevitably, with the Nandos under the station arches - and he paused with one hand on the doorknob.

"Tomorrow?" he said.

“Next week, I think,” Harry said. “And you?”

Eggsy smiled at him. It was still more an expression that would've been at home on a shark rather than betraying any actual positive feeling, but if one just concentrated on his lips it made him look rather sweet. "I'll be about."

***

"That Stephens is an absolute knob," James said, Friday evening in the pub. "I'll be keeping an eye on the silver while he's in the building, I can tell you."

"They're all like that," Merlin said. "If they have souls when they get there it's soon beaten out of them."

"I don't see why you're both allowed to say things like that and I'm the one who gets terrible PowerPoint lectures about being nice to our esteemed industry colleagues," Harry complained. "Pass me the salt and vinegar crisps, will you?"

"James is nice to their faces, which is all I ask," Merlin said oppressively. "You're not nice to anyone."

"I am nice to many people," Harry said. "People who deserve it."

"Your standards are too high," a voice said from behind them. "Whose round is it?"

"Mine," James said, getting up. "Hello, Adam. Usual, or are you in need of something stronger? Belize go all right?"

"Ghastly, old chap," Adam said cheerfully. "Better make it a brandy." Harry shuffled round the curved bench of the table and let Adam slide in. He was one of Kingsman's most experienced agents, a plain and good-natured man rounding the wrong side of sixty with his pension firmly in his sights and a fondness for increasingly big dinners and bigger drinks, usually shared: he was very popular with the support staff, whom he plied weekly with his wife's baking and had for many years allowed to trounce him in the annual Kingsman tennis, rounders, and golf tournaments.

Merlin had a hand at his glasses, frowning. "It was fine when you made your final report last night. How on earth have you turned 'fine’ into ‘ghastly’?”

"Oh, the _mission_ was fine," Adam said. He picked up Harry's Guinness and took an extremely healthy swig. "The flight back was a terror. I'd half a mind to break into the cockpit and fly it back myself."

"Might not have gone down very well with the other passengers," Harry said dryly.

"They'd have been delighted," Adam said with conviction. "I'm sure the pilot was a drunkard. I don't know why you didn't send me one of the jets, Merlin."

"Because you're spoiled," Merlin said, slouching into his seat and finishing his pint in two long swallows. "Hardship is character building."

"I've got quite enough character, thanks. You owe me, anyway. Bloody Rainmaker malfunctioned again."

"I don't know what you do to them," Harry said. James came back with two pints and a brandy, smirked when he caught the conversation - he was a menace to kit and the R&D team were known to keep a dartboard with his picture on it in a cupboard - and went back to the bar for the rest. Harry adopted a saintly tone and added, "Mine never goes wrong."

"That's because there is _nothing wrong with them_ ," Merlin said. "I won't be held responsible for user error, Adam. Bring it to the shooting range on Monday."

"Can't," Adam said. "Threw it in a river when it packed up on me."

"That's a waste," James said, putting the last glass down. He pulled a stool over and sat next to Merlin. "It'd still keep you dry in the rain."

"I was in no mood," Adam said. "Otherwise all went very well, poison administered, wrongdoer will do no further wrong. Had to take the taster and the wife too, pity, but couldn't be helped."

"Couldn't it?" Harry said, unable to prevent an austere tone coming into his voice. Merlin cast him a speaking glance; he was well aware of Harry's disapproval of what he considered a cavalier attitude amongst some fellow agents to the Kingsman stricture only to take life in the preservation of another, and to some extent shared those feelings, but by convention knights didn't criticise one another's methods, and censure from Merlin, who only ever went into the field accompanying the rawest recruits, was certainly not welcome.

Adam slurped at his brandy thoughtfully. "Well, no, actually. The man was never alone. It's terribly hard to prove, though, isn't it? Like those novels about what the world would be like if Germany had won the war."

"Harry has had a much better week," James said; he hated an argument almost as much as a philosophical discussion. "Blowjobs from lithe young men, and all on expenses."

"What's that?" Adam said. "New operation?"

"Just for fun," Harry said, still irritated.

"The details are in the files," Merlin said. "Under Baker. Domestic terrorism risk, Harry's approached a potential spy."

"Oh dear, lost boys, Harry," Adam said. His cheeks were becoming florid already; he'd finished the brandy and started his pint of the very good dark ale brewed locally. "What a terrible cliche. Will you come for dinner on Sunday? Dorothy's roasting a goose."

"I like that," James said. "Eh, Merlin?"

"You're always welcome too," Adam said patiently. 

"I'm joking," James said. "I'm going up to Charlotte's family pile in Shropshire. She wants me to meet her parents."

"I thought you were going out with a girl called Emily," Adam said. 

"That was last month," Merlin said snidely, and the conversation devolved into the common theme of when James would stop slutting around with the daughters of the minor nobility and settle down.

Harry finished his pint and excused himself early; he could feel a headache coming on.

***

He hadn't made a particular arrangement with Eggsy for the next week, so back to the street it was the following Wednesday.

He didn't need to go terribly far. Eggsy was lingering round the corner from the boys' usual spot and when Harry slowed the car he came over, slouching like a puppet with a lazy hand on the strings, and got in.

Eggsy sank into the seat like it was the softest sofa and Harry gave him an evaluating look. He looked tired, hair lank and curling across his forehead, an unhappy tilt to his mouth and blueish smudges beneath his eyes.

"Hello," Harry said.

"A'ight," Eggsy said, and then as Harry pulled away and started looking for a place to turn around Eggsy squinted at him. "Don't you need glasses to drive?"

Bugger. He didn't, of course, but the boy was quite right; he'd been wearing them the first time he'd picked Eggsy up.

"Contacts today," he said calmly.

Eggsy peered at him. "Whatever," he said eventually. "Just don't crash into a bus and kill me."

"I wasn't planning on it," Harry said. "Millwall did well at the weekend."

Eggsy picked that up, as intended, and his thoughts on his team's recent change to 4-4-2 took up the rest of the short journey nicely. 

Harry parked outside the hotel. Eggsy said, unprompted, "Do you want me to wait a bit? What room you in?" He misinterpreted Harry’s pause and added, "Don’t worry, I ain’t gonna nick your motor."

Chance would be a fine thing; Harry doubted he’d be able to give the horrible machine away. "212," Harry said. “I suppose you could give it five minutes.”

He looked back as he reached the door. Eggsy didn't see; his head was bowed and he was very still, as if caught up in his own thoughts. Harry made an educated guess and used the five minutes to nip to the ice machine.

"The usual?" Eggsy said when he came in, heading straight for the chair. Off the street he was moving even more stiffly and his tone was flat. Two previous meetings and Harry already had a 'usual': it didn’t say much for Eggsy’s notion of stability.

"Yes, please," Harry said. He'd picked the money up from its resting place on the table when Eggsy had come in and he stepped forward now and held it out.

Eggsy glanced up and reached for it and their fingers brushed delicately. Eggsy's were cool and a little dry. Eggsy stood for a moment, watching him, before putting the money safely away in a zippered pocket on his hoodie and perching on his chair.

Harry took up his seat on the bed. The show began.

And went on. And on and on. Eggsy's face got red and damp and his fist moved with a fury that made Harry's wrist twinge in sympathy, but his dick stubbornly refused to participate beyond a disinterested half-erection. It was difficult to watch, partly because the expression of pain on the boy's face - as he tried to do what ought to be a normal, innocent pleasure - only confirmed Harry's suspicions.

"All right," he said, after about ten minutes had passed. "I think that's enough."

Eggsy slumped, wiped the sleeve of his garish jacket across his forehead. "Sorry," he said softly. "I can - suck you, or wank you off -"

"That won't be necessary," Harry said. He studied Eggsy for a moment, until Eggsy squirmed, looking small and sad against the scuffed spare cream walls. "Take off your jacket and t-shirt, please."

Eggsy didn't say _no_. His body said it for him, his shoulders rounding and his hands jerking up, protective. Harry had the sense he didn't know it, how eloquently his body spoke; or perhaps it took someone of Harry's training to listen to it, because Eggsy had the resigned demeanour of someone who’d learnt he preferred not to make his refusals over voicing them and having them ignored. 

It was a salutary reminder of what he was dealing with: a young man with a history of abuse, who would need very careful handling and encouragement to turn on his abuser with the least risk to Eggsy Harry could manage. 

Or to be precise, not only a history of abuse. Harry knew the signs of bruised ribs intimately, how they preoccupied every moment by making even breathing painful. He wondered if Eggsy always returned to the streets after a beating, or if he'd come out specifically to wait for Harry. 

Eggsy's body was a silent rebuke; he hadn't moved a muscle since the ignored instruction. 

"All right," Harry said again. He stood up; he didn't go near Eggsy but the boy flinched anyway, violently enough to wince at the pressure it put on his torso.

Harry went to the ice bucket he'd left on the bedside table and dropped a handful of ice onto the hand towel he'd brought out from the bathroom earlier, ready. He twisted it up into a compress and went to Eggsy, offering it from a good arm's reach away.

Eggsy looked up at him, then took the compress, moving slowly as an old man, and put it up under his jacket, over the t-shirt, and held it against the right side of his chest, the vulnerable area under the pectorals. 

His eyes slid closed briefly in response to the numbness spreading over the sore area, and Harry was interrupted in the very pleasant fantasy he was spinning of punching Baker in the face by a sense memory of that feeling, the niceness when pain was replaced by the tender, prickling sensation of icing.

He cleared his throat. "Twenty minutes on, no more, then forty minutes off. You can keep the room."

Eggsy looked into his face for long moments, gave the barest nod. "Thanks," he said. His voice sounded rusty.

Harry nodded back and moved to the door, collecting his coat as he went; he had nothing else in the room.

"Harry," Eggsy said, just after the click of Harry turning the door handle. Harry turned his face enough to show he was listening. Eggsy's voice held a bouquet: gratitude, fear; roses, thorns. "Why you being nice to me?"

The answer in Harry's head should have been _because I need you to trust me so I can do my job_. It wasn't.

To Eggsy, he gave the only answer possible. "Why not?"

He thought about the small smile Eggsy had given him in response, wary and puzzled but real, until the small hours: it was gone three by the time he fell into a troubled sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

After such poor sleep Harry was irritable in the morning and chose a black suit, discreetly pinstriped to avoid too funereal an appearance, and a silk tie elegantly patterned with a grey-on-grey geometric print.

By the time he marched out of the shuttle and into HQ proper he'd drunk three double espressos and was in the mood to be gratuitously rude to someone. So he went straight to the office suite known as the Hawthorne Tree, where Merlin and his senior team huddled and worked their magic.

He ran into Gwendolyn first, Merlin's deputy and one of the most talented handlers in the organisation; she'd saved Harry's life when they were both a hair past brand new, getting him out of the Eastern Bloc through a torturous combination of train, mule, hitch-hiking, and finally plane, all while he had a slow internal bleed. She ruled the wider tech team with an iron fist and, rumour had it, was better paid than almost anybody else in the organisation because Arthur was too afraid of her to refuse Merlin's requests for her annual payrise.

As such, Harry permitted her to take liberties. So when she took one look at his face and said, " _No_ , you old bastard, go to the library and I'll have him meet you there," in much the same tones his father had used with dogs begging at the dinner table, he only called her a wretched tyrant, affectionately, and went to wait in the library as instructed.

"You've been frightening my staff again," Merlin said severely, joining him. He was juggling two cups of tea, the clipboard-tablet that was more or less permanently attached to his person, and a plate of biscuits.

"These are Gwen's special Waitrose Viennese whirls," Harry pointed out, relieving Merlin of the plate and one of the cups. "So she still loves me really."

"Unless they're poisoned," Merlin said. "No, really, Harry, she said you came storming in with a face like a smacked arse. You've seen the lad three times."

"You were watching yesterday, then," Harry said. He was never entirely sure: although he kept the glasses on or around and recording as a matter of course, he was experienced enough not to need a handler for anything but the highest pressure situations and it was sometimes a surprise when Merlin or one of his team mentioned an incident he'd thought himself alone for.

"Enough to see he was injured. Baker?"

"I assume so," Harry said. He squashed himself more firmly into the comfort of the badly overstuffed armchair and dunked a biscuit into his tea, rescuing it deftly as it reached peak saturation. "It's about time somebody took this on. The boy's like a spooked horse."

"I’m letting you get this out of your system now, so it doesn't come out at the meeting later," Merlin said. "Harry, Eggsy isn't the purpose of this operation."

"He's my purpose at the moment," Harry argued. "Without him what do we have?"

"Exactly," Merlin said. "I don't disagree with getting him the best outcome we can, Christ knows. But he's a means to an end."

"What a charming attitude," Harry said acidly. 

"Don't be obtuse," Merlin said. "I'm not telling you to be cruel, I'm telling you to be professional."

Harry fumed, silently.

"Well, this was a good chat," Merlin said eventually. "I'll leave you the biscuits. You know where I am when you're ready to admit I'm right."

"I won't jeopardise the operation," he said.

"I've no worries about that at all," Merlin said equanimously. He clapped Harry on the shoulder as he left.

Harry finished his tea and got up. That hadn't helped at all, so to the gym for him: half an hour with a punching bag would set him back to rights.

***

"How are things going with Unwin?" Asher said. Her functionary poured her a glass of iced water with lemon and she took a sip. "You've made several contacts now?"

"Three," Harry said, as surly as the boy under discussion. "It's fine."

"Would you care to elaborate?" she said, after a brief silence. 

"No," Harry said. Merlin shot him a warning look and James gave the room one of his big, friendly smiles, the one designed to make people think they were dealing with a complete fool and let him get on with things uninterrupted. "Well, I don't quite see the point. I've started to establish familiarity. There's really not much else to say."

"I think that's enough information," Stephens said. His face was tight. Harry was tempted to change his mind and start a detailed, if fictional, description of all the things he'd been having Eggsy get up to in the name of 'familiarity'. "I have an update on the French situation, if I may."

"By all means," Harry said. He put his hands in his lap and stretched out his fingers. His knuckles were pleasantly sore.

Stephens waved at his bag carrier - he probably had a name and one day Harry would most certainly bother to learn it - who, inevitably, passed round a neatly stapled report to each of them. It bore the SIS logo and Harry briefly considered asking whether they shouldn't have them in the room, before realising one more government person directly involved would probably drive him mad. Better to let the MIs 5 and 6 squabble on their own time and Stephens could just bring the results. 

"Our colleagues in SIS have made a link between Baker and a known member of group calling itself Le Rouge," Stephens said. 

"With what level of certainty?" Merlin said.

"High," Stephens said. "If you can turn please to page ten -"

They all did. There was a photo; decent quality, surveillance quality, not CCTV: Baker and a disdainful-faced man in a creased shirt, with piercing eyes and thin lips. "Taken in Calais five weeks ago, but it took some time for them to ID Baker."

"What was he doing in Calais five weeks ago?" Harry said.

"Booze cruise. Daughter of one of his associates got married at the end of the month."

"I remember that," Asher said. "There was a fight at the reception. One of our PCs had a bottle thrown at him."

"Any action afterwards?" James said.

"No, they closed ranks and we couldn't bring in the whole party. There were over a hundred people there." She glanced at Harry. "Eggsy included, actually. Completely pissed, and his mate called the other PC a racist knob."

"And is the other PC a racist knob?" Harry said sweetly. She gave him a stony look.

Merlin coughed meaningfully and Harry looked away and took a long drink of coffee, indulging himself for a moment with an image of pouring it over his shiny bald head.

"The point is," Stephens said, "this puts things in a different light. Le Rouge have successfully perpetrated a number of serious assaults, are suspected in two murders, and are thought to have recently recruited a bombmaker from a separatist group in the Basque. In short - this is all in the report - they are well-organised domestic terrorists, and quite a lot better at their work than we've known Baker's gang to be."

"How did he meet them?" Asher said.

"And how are they keeping in touch now?" Merlin added.

"We're not sure," Stephens said grimly. "On either point. They could have given him a phone. He's barely computer literate, that we know of, so it's not online." He looked at Harry. "Unless the boy..."

"If we think Eggsy is already sufficiently involved to be facilitating conversations with foreign terrorists it warrants taking quite a different approach," Harry said.

"It wouldn't have to mean involvement," James said. "Anyone can get a Skype call or whatever going and leave the room."

"Well, what are you saying?" Harry said to Stephens. "This needs to go faster?" It didn't matter: he was absolutely sure in himself that Eggsy wasn't doing any favours for Baker at all. But saying so without evidence probably did not count as ‘professional’ as per his earlier discussion with Merlin.

Stephens glanced at Asher; Asher pursed her lips at Merlin; Merlin looked at Harry; Harry rolled his eyes at James. James was picking at his nails with the clip on his fountain pen.

“I’m comfortable with the existing timetable,” Asher said eventually. “But I’d suggest we each consider the intelligence SIS has provided, share any comments by email, and come back together in a week to review.”

“That sounds fine,” Merlin said.

“Fine,” Stephens said.

“ _Fine_ ,” Asher said.

***

Harry trailed behind Merlin as he escorted the guests out through the shop. It was rather easier to summon a pleasant smile when its purpose was to say goodbye. The door swung gently closed behind them and peace reigned in Kingsman once again.

"Galahad," Christopher said from behind the counter, where he was doing the crossword. "Arthur has asked if you'll join him for dinner."

A short-lived peace, apparently. "Certainly," he said.

Christopher scrutinised him and then said, "We've had a delivery of a very fine new grey check worsted, if you'd care to go down and have a look. I thought, perhaps, spring suits for yourself and Gawain."

"I will," Harry said. Some soothing time in the cellar storage and workshop sounded just the thing; Christopher had taught him the craft, when he was fresh to Kingsman, and he was one of the few agents to take an active interest in the tailoring front, beyond wearing the suits. "Thank you."

Christopher inclined his head. "Dinner will be served at seven."

***

A couple of hours of fondling fabrics and looking at the patterns Christopher was working on for a horribly trendy suit James had asked for did indeed prove highly restorative. By the time Harry went in to dinner he was hopeful he and Arthur wouldn't end up having a row, even if the old man were at his worst.

Dinner was never less than excellent in any Kingsman establishment. Arthur had recently been diagnosed with high cholesterol and had told everyone, in high dudgeon at being told to avoid red meat and butter, so the London chefs had been exerting themselves to provide some variety. Today was very good pork chops, lightly fried with an apple sauce, paired with a respectable Berry Bros. pinot noir.

There was little more than polite, desultory conversation during the meal; Kingsman agents took their food seriously. Harry refused pudding when Arthur did, choosing to take an Irish coffee instead, and waited for the storm to descend.

“Lancelot popped in earlier,” Arthur said. He stirred sugar into his coffee, in his usual uneven clinking rhythm that was as unpredictable as a dripping tap and a thousand times more annoying. “Gave me a bit of an update on this Baker operation.”

“How nice,” Harry said. Arthur had been a bloody good agent back in the day but Harry wasn’t a sodding amateur. He wasn’t going to give up any more than he absolutely had to; after thirty years he rather thought he’d earned his head in matters like these.

"Galahad," Arthur said, portentously. 

"Yes, Arthur?" Harry said.

"I am concerned by what I've heard about this 'Eggsy'," Arthur said, with an impressive amount of disgust loaded onto the name.

"I'm not sure what you mean," Harry said. The healthy tot of whisky in the coffee gave a pleasant sense of warmth, which was nice as there certainly wasn't any in the conversation. "I've been assigned to this operation. The decision to approach Eggsy using his profession was a joint one. I've attempted to do so in as uncompromising a manner as possible. What do you wish me to do differently?"

"Lancelot seems to feel you're becoming... fond of the boy."

"He's a bright young man in difficult circumstances," Harry said carefully. "We wouldn't be attempting to run him otherwise. Taking an interest in Eggsy is part of getting him to work with us."

"You must control yourself," Arthur said. "Boys like him need to be handled with the utmost care. They are inherently untrustworthy."

"You're a snob, Arthur," Harry said in the most straightforward way he felt himself capable of. "On what I've seen from Eggsy so far I've no especial concerns about him. I wouldn't continue the operation if I did."

"The dignity of Kingsman..." Arthur began, running smoothly on into an extremely familiar lecture.

Harry nodded and hmmed his way through it, helped along by a second coffee with a double helping of whisky from the sympathetic Graeme from the kitchens, and escaped as soon as he politely could.

'The dignity of Kingsman.' For fuck's sake.

***

Harry didn't go out looking for Eggsy again for a few days. Partly to avoid further pointless jabbering from either Merlin or Arthur, but mostly because he thought a little time and space might be best, after what had happened on the evening Eggsy was injured.

He didn't know what the boy might have made of it, in his head, if he would be proud and resentful or might have developed a fondness, decided Harry was his protector; the latter, at least, Harry might have turned to his advantage, but he knew for a certainty that he would find it difficult to pay Eggsy for sex again if he were still suffering, and he wasn’t sure they were at a point where he could offer simple shelter and support instead.

It was therefore the next Thursday when Harry went back out looking for Eggsy, driving round to the railway arches behind the Gardens where the boys congregated.

It was earlier than he'd been the previous times, the vestiges of twilight still blending gently into full night. That was perhaps why there were fewer boys, three of them huddled against the spring chill and sharing a cigarette when Harry pulled up, none of them Eggsy. 

Bugger. Was he not out tonight, or merely not out yet? Still injured... or injured again? There wasn't much Harry didn't believe Baker capable of, including laying one beating on another upon a teenage boy. Was it too soon to give him Harry's phone number, or better still a burner phone of Eggsy's own to use? It was, really; he'd come across as a complete nutter, probably scare Eggsy off. _Fuck_.

He realised he was much more anxious about how the boy was than the operation warranted; for that a week here or there at this stage was nothing. But with Eggsy not to be found, a tension Harry only just recognised he'd been carrying all week turned into an adrenaline spike, flaring anger through his body.

The three boys had snake-hipped their way over as a pack, and were gesturing for him to wind his window down. He recognised two of them vaguely as having been around during his earlier pick-ups, and the easy expressions on their faces made him suspect they knew the car from then and had heard from their colleagues that he was a safe enough bet. He wound down the window. 

"Looking for some company, gorgeous?" the blondest one said. He cupped his crotch helpfully so Harry understood what he meant and gave a little hip thrust.

"Some company in particular," Harry said. "Sorry."

"Love, he might be better," the blond said kindly, "but I'm right here."

"Oi!" 

That was Eggsy's voice, but Harry looked around and couldn't see him anywhere. Then he followed the blond's scowling face, up. 

Eggsy was above, leaning over the barrier of the bloody railway bridge - he was _on the fucking line_ , what the fuck. Harry had his mouth open ready to shout -

And then Eggsy dropped over the barrier in a flawless gate vault, bounced onto a wide metal ventilation shaft, slithered down the side and hung off the bottom of it on his fingertips, dropped to land lightly on the roof of a van handily parked out the back of the bathroom shop, sprang onto the bonnet, and from thence to the ground. Where he put his hands in his pockets and sauntered towards Harry's car like he'd just strolled round the corner.

The whole performance took under a minute. Harry flashed back to one of the details from Eggsy's file. Of course, he wasn't so very many years from his budding career as a champion gymnast - and had clearly gone to some effort transferring it to freerunning skills more suited to his current lifestyle. It was a notable display of grace and competence, and something inside Harry shimmered with recognition, affinity: a similar sense of his body had saved Harry’s life more than once.

Eggsy had reached them. "Do one," he said to the other boys, over the car roof. "He's taken." And got confidently into the passenger seat beside Harry.

Harry shrugged at the blond. "Apologies."

He looked at Eggsy as he pulled away. Unlike the last time he was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

"Hiya," Eggsy said, looking quite pleased to see him, the furthest thing from the sullen bravado-ridden yobbo who'd got in Harry's car the very first time; he'd clearly noticed that he'd impressed Harry, and liked that he had.

God, the resilience of youth, Harry thought wistfully. He'd fractured a rib during a chase in Marrakech two years ago and it still ached a bit if he slept too long in the same position. Eggsy's bruises were probably still painful, after only a week or so, but he was evidently recovered enough to feel ready resuming strenuous activities. 

"Hasn't anyone ever told you not to play on railway lines?" he asked.

"Didn't listen, did I," Eggsy said flippantly. He wriggled in his seat and threw Harry a smile, reckless and glittering. Harry had never seen him so loose before; it was lovely to see it now. Just because it meant their relationship was moving in a positive direction, for the operation. 

Eggsy didn’t bother to ask if Harry wanted him to wait again, just got out of the car and fell into step beside him. Harry already had his keycard so he sailed past the reception desk, ignoring the way the girl’s eyes got big; he could almost see her brain whirring like an old-fashioned cinema reel so she could relay it to her colleagues later.

Ah, well: for what did they live but to make sport for their neighbours? It was all in service of the cover. Eggsy took his cue from Harry and held his head high at Harry’s side; he could apply that bravado appropriately, then, when he cared to. He carried himself in his cheap outfit like he was wearing the finest formalwear Kingsman had to offer.

Harry unlocked the door and opened it for Eggsy to go through first. Eggsy shot him a look that could only be described as coy and went in. Harry had left the usual £200 on the table, ready; he glanced out of the window briefly, taking in the poor view of a pub frontage and a main road, and when he looked back it had disappeared and Eggsy was half-sitting on the table and watching him.

“Thought you might like something a bit different today,” Eggsy said.

“Did you,” Harry said. He couldn’t quite identify the feeling he had, less from the words and more from the look on Eggsy’s face, which if it wasn’t genuine enthusiasm was a bloody good approximation utilising much better acting skills than Eggsy had demonstrated to this point. “The customer is always right, though, I think.”

Eggsy smiled slowly and said, “People like my mouth.” He licked his lips, showily, far too bloody obvious to be actually seductive; but he shifted on his chair with natural sensuality, unconscious of it, and his gaze was hot. “You should let me.”

Christ.

“I like what I like,” Harry said. His cock twitched. “I like to watch.”

“I’d like more,” Eggsy said.

“You don’t owe me more,” Harry said, and immediately realised his mistake, that the genuine feeling he was sensing from Eggsy had sent him way off course.

Eggsy’s smile turned triumphant, at getting Harry to imply that he was holding back for Eggsy, not from a real preference. Did Eggsy feel that - that he owed Harry? And if so, would it be better to go along with it, give Eggsy whatever he needed to feel they were back on an even playing field, Eggsy having something Harry wanted enough to pay for, or to stick to the position he’d taken?

There were so many dynamics at work: not only how Eggsy felt towards Harry now, but how he would feel when Harry revealed himself and what he really wanted from Eggsy. 

“We can always go back to that,” Eggsy said. He was watching Harry now with any playfulness, any trying to be sexy, gone from his expression and the solid line of his body. “You’ll be back. Won’t you?”

_Christ_.

“Yes,” Harry said, no playing needed. “I will.”

Eggsy nodded once, sharply, satisfied. Then he slid off the table, and Harry took two steps back and sat on the bed.

Eggsy knelt in at his feet, graceful as if Harry had never seen him injured at all, ducking his head down to Harry's crotch. He was still wearing the bloody ever-present awful hat, brim backwards; Harry reached down reflexively and pulled it off him, revealing the mop of sandy brown hair.

Eggsy looked up at him. Without the hat he looked softer, long-lashed hazel eyes big and surprised at being touched.

Harry made it deliberate. He rested his fingers on Eggsy’s cheek, feeling it flush warm under them. Then Eggsy bowed to undo Harry's trousers and pull out his cock. Harry's hand, and the charged little moment, fell away.

It was good. Very good. It felt like Harry’s pleasure was more important to Eggsy than his own had been, the times he’d touched himself for Harry to watch. He was skilled, certainly, to the extent of specialisation, but not impersonal; he tried things, did more of what worked and didn’t repeat what didn’t.

It didn’t feel mechanical, when he brought Harry to climax inside the condom he’d rolled onto Harry’s cock, and Harry - did not especially like himself for it.

He leaned his forehead against Harry’s flank, after, trustingly. Harry wanted to say something. ‘Gary’, it would’ve had to have been; he couldn’t bring himself. He put his hand in Eggsy’s hair instead, stroked softly while Eggsy took slow breaths against him.

Eggsy straightened after a few moments, tucked Harry’s cock away in a businesslike manner and stood up.

Harry said, “Well.”

“Yeah,” Eggsy said. He was half-hard, Harry could see it in his loose joggers. Eggsy picked up his cap from where Harry had tipped it to the floor and put it on. Some of the tension went out of his shoulders when his face was once again slightly shadowed by the wide brim, casting a chiaroscuro effect on that strong jaw and nose.

But he didn’t move to leave.

“I thought I might try that Lucky’s takeaway you suggested,” Harry said, after an awkward minute.

“Pork and cashew nuts half and half,” Eggsy said. He sat on the edge of the bed, found the TV remote in a drawer, and put on Don’t Tell the Bride.

(Harry had seen this one. She shouldn’t have gone through with marrying the unfeeling swine, but they always did.)


	4. Chapter 4

“Blah blah blah,” Stephens said. “Blah blah.”

Noticing his inattention, Merlin kicked Harry under the table and Harry caught his face just before it formed his _fuck you_ expression in response. 

“We can’t find any other evidence of the French influence here in London,” Asher said.

Doesn’t mean it’s not there, Harry thought; Merlin doubled down and stepped painfully on Harry’s toes. Harry made a note in his Smythson. It said, _all oxfords to have steel toecaps_.

“Maybe you just haven’t found it,” James said; good man. Merlin made a note in his own pad that possibly said, _grow more feet_.

“Can you just tell me the upshot,” Harry said desperately. He’d gone to Adam’s yesterday for a roast beef dinner, felt like he’d eaten most of a cow and drunk a vineyard’s worth of merlot, and now was wishing he was dead.

“We’d prefer to delay bringing Unwin on board for another week or two while we continue to gather intelligence,” Asher said crisply, in a manner reminiscent of a breakfast show presenter grilling a recalcitrant government minister. “Does that sound up to your abilities, Agent Galahad?”

Harry quite liked his code name but there was nothing like a government meeting to make him feel like Kingsman were a bunch of twats with ridiculous secret identities.

“Whatever you think,” he said. “Eggsy’s not involved in any such relationships, though. I’d put money on it.”

Asher and Stephens cast him dual ungenerous looks. Stephens said, “We’ll review next week.”

Review next week; all they bloody did was review next week. When did they actually do any of the things that had been reviewed?

“Oh _ow_ ,” Harry said. “I mean, oh good.”

***

“Here’s something to review from the French connection,” James said perkily, once the outsiders had left and Merlin had administered a double dose of alka seltzer and five minutes of unpleasing remarks. Harry stared at James stonily until he started to visibly crumple and said in a much more subdued way, “Savannah in the surveillance team found this at the end of last week.”

“Why would Savvy have brought this to you?” Merlin said suspiciously. “Gwen’s her bloody boss.”

“I’ve been mentoring her?” James said.

“Does Charlotte know that? Or Emily?” Harry said, seeing a bright spark in the unrelenting blackness of his hangover and having to work with government intelligence.

“ _James_ ,” Merlin said.

James brought up a video of Baker, soundless and grainy but apparently arguing with a self-checkout while trying to shove a card into it. "Baker doesn't have credit accounts," James said desperately. "Not formally, anyway. Does have a debit card, but uncharacteristic to use it." He isolated part of the picture showing Baker's hands and the card, zoomed in. The image wasn't quite clear enough for details, but there was something half-familiar about it. "This isn't it, anyway."

"Have you identified the card?" Harry said. 

"Carte Bancaire," James said, satisfied. "Savvy tried to get the day's records but they _said_ they'd had a computer glitch. Wonder if Baker's French paymasters realise he's taking their card down to Iceland."

"Or in a separate laundering scheme," Merlin said, pleased enough with the intelligence to bypass the debauchery of his staff; it was a sad lowering of standards, Harry thought. "We need that card off him. We can track purchases, maybe identify who got it for him, get into the French network that way."

"Simple enough to borrow his wallet for a few minutes in a busy pub," James said. "I'll do it this week. When are we bringing the boy on board again? Bit bloody easier a task for him."

“If Stephens ever unbends enough,” Merlin said. “Sodding MI5. They know all our agents are male. The boy isn’t touting for female company. What the bloody hell did they think they were bringing us in for?”

“We need Stephens,” Harry said dourly. “Even if only for decent information about Le Rouge.”

“If it is decent information,” James said. “Why they closed the French Kingsman branch, I don’t know.”

“It was - “ Merlin said.

“Yes, all right, I do know,” James said irritably. “Cost savings. What I _mean_ , Merlin, is that it’s not actually a saving, the Channel tunnel, is it, because being closer in terms of travel time is not the same as being closer for _intelligence purposes_.”

“Our office in Madrid is quite capable -” Merlin started.

“But they’re not in fucking France -” James snapped back.

“Shut up,” Harry said. He rolled a cool glass between the pulse points on his wrists, with little effect, then gave up and put his head on the table. “Please, both of you, shut the fuck up.”

***

Eggsy came round to the Holiday Inn on Wednesday evening. Harry opened his room door and waited for him there, watching Eggsy come down the corridor towards him with a rolling, swaggery walk. Eggsy squeezed past Harry to come into the room: entirely unwarranted closeness, as Harry had stepped back politely to let him in. 

“What you after today then?” he said. Harry admired the smooth sleight of hand as Eggsy made the money disappear from where it was waiting on the table as usual; a casual reach back, no fumbling or checking, just a very nice economy of movement as he swept the money into his palm and then into his jeans pocket in one motion.

He’d been thinking about that, what to say. He'd been trying to work out what Eggsy might be thinking and feeling about the blowjob he'd given Harry the previous week, whether it would make him feel safer - more in control - to repeat that or whether it was simplest to go back to Harry's supposed fetish for voyeurism on handsome young men.

In the event, it was an unseasonably warm day, sticky and enervating, and Harry fell back with some relief on asking for Eggsy to go back to masturbating while Harry watched.

It was good; Eggsy seemed fine enough with the choice, and brought himself off efficiently and even with a look that resembled real pleasure. He cleaned himself up after and drifted round the room, restless and a bit sullen, shooting glances at Harry.

“How much do you charge for fucking?” Harry said idly, unfairly; he felt irritated for no reason he could put his finger on but they were sufficiently accustomed to one another for him to be sure the question wouldn’t send Eggsy fleeing. He watched with interest and some regret as Eggsy’s shoulders went stiff. 

“Two grand,” Eggsy said, with almost believable carelessness. 

“That’s a lot,” Harry said. It wasn’t, really. Eggsy had pitched that really quite astutely, given that Harry gave him two hundred a go just for some light solo exhibitionism; low enough that Harry Morgan might consider it, perhaps revisit the thought and be tempted, high enough he was unlikely to jump at the chance.

Eggsy’s mouth twisted. “Boldly going where no man’s been, innit. I ain’t gonna give it away.”

“I see,” Harry said, and watched closely as Eggsy turned away again, hiding his face. Not dishonest, he decided; Eggsy hadn’t been fucked before, and didn’t care to be paid for the privilege. Was he actually interested in men at all? 

“Do you fuck blokes, then?” Eggsy said. Harry watched as he dithered about whether to just drop his come-sticky tissues on the bed, but what Harry took to be his care for the people who cleaned the hotel overcame his desire to piss Harry off and he put them in the bin. Then Eggsy sat on the bed, close enough to Harry’s stretched out legs that he could have nudged Eggsy with his feet.

“Why do you ask?” Harry said, genuinely interested in the answer.

“You like to look,” Eggsy said. He turned the television on and flipped through the channels, settling on a repeat of One Born Every Minute, which he looked at with every sign of absorption. “Wife? Girlfriend? Someone at home wouldn’t like it if you touched.”

“If there were someone at home,” Harry said, “I shouldn’t think they’d like the watching, either.”

“That ain't so bad,” Eggsy said. He glanced at Harry; his changeable eyes were inscrutable but there was tension in the line of his mouth that said he knew very well the challenge he was giving. “Bit harder to explain bumming a kid you picked up on a street corner.”

“I daresay you’re right,” Harry said. With some surprise, he identified the conversation mentally not just as challenging but as revenge: rather clumsy, yes, but Harry prying into his preferences must have really bothered him. Hoping to return the conversation to safety he said, “Can you turn the volume up a little, please?”

Eggsy did, pulling his feet up to sit cross-legged on the bed. He might be a bit pissed off but that tiny happenstance of positioning spoke of a level of comfort, escape far from Eggsy's mind. Harry would ring up for pizza in the first ad break, let Eggsy eat most of it, and then give him the room for the evening. What Eggsy had at home was clearly not concerned about him being out all night.

Of course, Eggsy wasn’t entirely wrong about what Harry had at home either; Harry’s glasses were on the table and Merlin certainly would _not_ have liked Harry bumming the kid he’d picked up on the street corner.

***

"Morning, Harry," James said, when Harry took off his ear protectors and stepped back from his lane, pressing the button to display the hologram showing where he'd hit the target.

"Morning," Harry said. "Early for you." Especially on a Thursday: James tended to get later and later during the week, until on Fridays he turned up about eleven and was in the pub with everyone else by half twelve. Not that agents were expected to keep regular hours, or indeed any hours in particular, but Harry at least had always quite liked affecting the regular hours of the ordinary businessmen associated with the tailor’s side of the organisation.

"Frosty atmosphere at the breakfast table," James said. "Put me off my cornflakes so I thought I'd come in."

Harry half-smiled, attention mostly on the hologram. "Charlotte, still?" He'd thought this handgun was pulling to the left a little and it was definitely getting worse. The shotgun feature was useful but it did have a tendency to affect the pistol and need regular recalibration. This one just needed a tune-up, he thought, but it was nearing the end of its useful life. He'd drop it at the armoury later with a note of the target numbers and see what they made of it.

"Yes, that's the one," James said glumly. "Delightful girl, but..."

"Always there's a but, James," Harry said, with as much sympathy as he judged reasonable. "Didn't you like her parents, or didn't they like you?"

"They were perfectly decent," James said. He got gun oil and swabs out of the cupboard and stripped his handgun, his hands moving rapidly. "The father is something big in the City. The mother makes jam."

"How very traditional," Harry said.

"Mm," James said. "Yes. Pointed questions were asked about the tailoring business in this day and age. Keeping their cherished only daughter in the style to which she's accustomed etc etc."

"Ah," Harry said. 

"She's in a Magic Circle firm, for God's sake. Doing brilliantly. Makes more than we do."

"Snap her up, then," Harry said. 

"I took Savvy out for a drink last night," James said, evidently seeing this as a logical next step in the conversation. "To say thanks for the Baker thing, I'm following up on the credit card this week. Impressive young woman."

"I hope I'm there when Merlin finds out," Harry said. "Commend your soul to God."

"It would be nice to go out with someone in the organisation again," James said reflectively. Harry thought about last time James had gone out with someone in the organisation. Possibly it had been nice at one point, but the high-profile flameout of the whole thing hadn't seemed very nice to Harry when he'd been dodging hurled crockery while just trying to have lunch. "The endless prevarication does rather get to one. Charlotte's mother told her the father thinks poncing about with a bit of wool and a pair of scissors is no life for a man of spirit. Dresses terribly himself, obviously. Money instead of taste."

"It sounds dreadful," Harry said supportively. "Are you shooting?"

"I am." James dialled up a target and a hologram started moving in front of them, simulating a chase around a crowded market. James hooked the ear protectors around his neck, ready, and slotted a new cartridge into his cleaned, reassembled pistol. "Thanks for this chat, old cock. Very helpful."

Had it been? Wonders never ceased. "Always happy to be of service."

***

He hadn't gone out looking for Eggsy on a Sunday before but the weekend had been mostly spoiled by carrying on a ridiculous argument over email with Stephens and Asher and it felt suitable to at least see if Eggsy were about.

Harry wasn't sure how much he actually worked; surveillance before the operation really began had suggested two or three clients on two or three evenings during the week. Of course Harry routinely overpaid, but Eggsy hadn’t as far as he knew gone back out to the streets on the evenings Harry did bring him to the Holiday Inn.

He didn't actually get to the Gardens. Eggsy flagged him down before and threw himself into the passenger seat. 

"Hello," Harry said, eyeing him before he had to switch his attention to the traffic.

"Hi," Eggsy said, and stared at Harry the whole short way back to the hotel. There was an electric energy to him; his eyes were glittering and he seemed unusually nervy.

Drugs? Christ, Harry hoped not. What a waste it would be if so; not just of Harry’s time and the resources Kingsman had put into this operation already - a young druggie was not a reliable source - but of Eggsy himself, all that bravado and energy and his quicksilver mind.

Eggsy tumbled into the room ahead of Harry and Harry barely had the door shut when Eggsy rounded on him, tense and demanding attention. He said, “So, what do you want? Blowjob? Watch me wank? Or… something else?” 

That was forward, for Eggsy, and the strange offer - fuck, it was drugs, although the behaviour didn't seem quite right for anything in particular. _Shit_. Could it still be rescued? He had buying power - if he told Eggsy he preferred him clean, made it a condition - 

He frowned at Eggsy and made his tone cross. “Depends on the ‘something else’ you have in mind.”

Eggsy grinned, but his eyes were like granite, the weary casualness with which he'd begun to treat Harry gone.

“How about - I tell you all about the meeting my stepdad had with a bunch of his mates last night?”


	5. Chapter 5

Shit. _Shit_. No wonder he was so pleased. He knew, Harry had absolutely no doubt about that. And while readiness for this information was where he’d been gently steering Eggsy these last few weeks, it had not been expected that Eggsy would draw those conclusions on his own. Outwardly Harry adopted a look of polite confusion, inside furiously calculating all the things that would need to be done differently with Eggsy consciously spying for them.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” was all he said. “Your stepfather - why on earth would I be interested?”

“I think a lot of people are interested,” Eggsy said softly. He stepped forward and Harry overrode his instincts prickling red alert signals down his spine, sat back onto the bed and spread his legs and looked down into the face of the young man who knelt between them. Eggsy went on, “Me. You, turning up out of nowhere and being the weirdest fucking punter I've ever had."

He paused for effect, holding Harry's gaze; Harry couldn't have looked away if he'd wanted to. "And this bloke in the pub Friday night, posh bugger, made out like he was wankered and lifted my stepdad’s wallet, I saw him do it. He was wearing a dead nice suit like you wear and the same tie I've seen you in, the navy one with the pink diagonal stripe. You’ve got to admit, that’s a lot of interest.”

Fucking James, the smug bastard. Harry was going to kill him. 

Well, no point fussing now. He could stick to the timeline they'd agreed, deny all, and jeopardise what he'd started to build with Eggsy when he did eventually reveal what he really wanted from the boy.

Or he could confess, deal with the squawking about the delicate stage of the operation, and possibly but not definitely end up with Eggsy in a more dangerous position than if they'd been able to complete preparations to bring him in.

It was barely a choice. He was going to run with Eggsy, and see how far the track went.

He looked Eggsy straight in the eye, setting his expression to be serious, man-to-man. "Yes," he said. "I'll take the something else."

Eggsy looked a bit conflicted, as if having made his gamble he was surprised it had actually come off. He stood up, keeping his gaze on Harry, who understood the message perfectly: he and Eggsy would be equals now, no longer rentboy and customer.

By the time Eggsy stepped carefully back and sat down hard on one of the chairs, his confidence was up and rising, pleasure at being right brightening. “I thought so,” he said.

The self-satisfied little shit. But Harry believed in positive reinforcement; and the boy had done well. Done very well indeed.

“Yes,” he said again, let it be full of lazy pride, "that's why I chose you," and watched Eggsy respond, a slow, small, real smile blooming over his familiar face like sunrise. 

***

He walked into Merlin's office bright and early on Monday morning and threw a list on his desk. "Names, descriptions and a rough hierarchy of Baker's gang, from Eggsy last night. I wrote it up after making my initial report." 

Actually during, while the predicted squawking was happening, with the volume on his glasses turned low. Getting everyone up very late on a Sunday with the crucial update had not made him popular.

Merlin glanced at him, glanced at the paper, then picked it up and started to read through it properly. There was a lot to read through.

"He told you all this?" he said eventually.

"He notices everything," Harry said, not without some smugness. That, he'd expected; the insight, who got on with who and where the cracks were amongst Baker’s gang and the savage humour Eggsy had brought to the report, he hadn't. "His thoughts need some organising but nothing he won't pick up, I'm sure."

Eggsy's eyes had crinkled the first time Harry laughed; all to the good, since his wanting to please Harry was important. What had been less to the good was Harry's own sharp pleasure in seeing the boy awaken perhaps for the first time to his own capacity to be used for his brain. 

"That's very promising," Merlin said. He tapped his fingers against the papers in a staccato, not quite rhythmic pattern. "What have you told him about you? About Kingsman?"

"Nothing," Harry said; Merlin looked at him sceptically. "Nothing! He didn't ask. I think he was caught out by having his suspicions confirmed. I expect he'll have more to say for himself next time I see him."

"Have you arranged it?"

"This evening. With his agreement, I suggest transitioning to the besotted customer phase of the cover, as planned. I'd prefer him off the streets and it'll give me a reason to hang around him and see things for myself."

"Stalking your underage gay prostitute? Aye, quite. Stephens will be thrilled."

"He will if it gets the job done," Harry said. "Speaking of getting the job done. Have you seen James this morning?"

"He’s had the cheek to show his face, yeah. Savvy is keeping him busy in the dining room for me."

Harry checked his watch. He'd come in early, but Kingsman staff were morning people, and ate like locusts. "Should be nice and busy down there about now."

"Hungry?"

"Starving."

***

Asher demanded a meeting that afternoon, leaving Merlin and Harry scrambling to get back to the shop from HQ in time and to prepare. (James was not invited: he was in disgrace, and also sulking at having had it loudly pointed out in a dining room full of people that he'd been made by an untrained seventeen-year-old.)

She swept into the shop like an eighties Madonna music video, all severe black tailoring and a ferocious scowl. "Agent Galahad," she said thinly, showing herself up the stairs and towards the boardroom. "Merlin."

"You go up," Harry said to Merlin. "I'll wait for Stephens."

Merlin sighed and nodded, taking the stairs his customary two at a time, which his long legs contrived to make look elegant.

Stephens was a little late, and flustered with it when he came into the shop in a flap of trenchcoat, taxi receipt, briefcase and assistant. "So sorry," he said. "Rearranged the diary to come along, last meeting overran..."

"Of course," Harry said. He took the coat and passed it to Christopher, who accepted it with a small smile, probably wishing for all of them to depart his nice, pristine, peaceful shop immediately. Harry led Stephens and MI5 junior up the stairs and showed them in. 

"- Not appropriate for Kingsman to unilaterally make that decision. We had clear agreement on that point -" Asher was saying with restrained anger, while Merlin gave her a steady, unapologetic gaze.

"Oh, you've started," Harry said wryly. "Drink, Stephens? Anyone else?"

"Tea would be lovely, thank you," Stephens said; the briefcase was on the floor and papers out of it and he was looking much calmer.

"I'm fine, thank you," Asher said. She took her seat, sitting ramrod straight and clasping her hands in front of her on the polished mahogany table. "Well, I suppose it's clear where we stand. This should not have happened. You kept information from us about the French providing finance directly to Baker. You acted on that information without discussion. And then - you couldn't even bloody do it properly! So now we have this ridiculous sodding situation where we have a very young man ready to start passing us intelligence, no real plan yet for how to use him or how we'll ensure his safety while living in his subject's home - and we're not even entirely sure he's definitely on our side."

"I think that sums up the situation, yes," Merlin said. "Galahad operates with absolute discretion in the field, Chief Inspector. We've always been clear about that, Kingsman never works with outside organisations on any other basis. As for the misstep with Lancelot being seen lifting the card... we apologise. But it's happened and we are where we are."

"Has the card led to useful information, at least?" Stephens said. 

"It has," Merlin said. "A list of places Baker and associates have used the card that I think you'll find interesting. My team is working on who and what are behind the account it’s drawn on now. It's linked to a cluster of financial activity which is looking very promising. We've prepared a preliminary report for you both. We’ve also some other intelligence to share with you, straight from Eggsy, on the makeup of the gang. Quite comprehensive.”

“ _If_ it’s reliable,” Asher said. “Hand it over.” Merlin passed around copies of the papers Harry had given him that morning.

Stephens stared down at his for a few seconds and then looked up. “There’ll be a recording from Galahad’s... encounter with Unwin last night?”

“Yes,” Harry said. “As standard.”

Stephens glanced at Asher; she nodded. “Perhaps if we could view that…?”

“Perhaps if we could get a copy,” Asher said sharply.

“That won’t be possible,” Merlin said. “Our recording standards and encryption are incompatible with external systems. But we can look at it now. If you wish.”

Asher and Stephens both looked intensely irritated by this. Harry enjoyed his sense of schadenfreude at Kingsman’s bureaucracy having annoyed them, for once.

"I think that would be helpful," Asher said in grudging compromise.

Merlin tapped his tablet and a transparent screen rolled slowly up from the table. Stephens jolted, lapping tea over his fingers: the screen was embedded seamlessly into the table, a condition of Arthur's allowing Merlin to put it there into the Table, which was an heirloom from one of the founding families and could have funded Kingsman for a week if they ever became sufficiently impecunious to have to take the lot down to Sotheby's. The overall effect was nice and flashy, and gave a much better picture for video playback than the portrait-screen and glasses combination. In any case Merlin was jealous as hell over the glasses, and hated having to let anyone outside Kingsman wear them.

Harry turned his attention to the screen. The glasses had been resting on the bedside table as normal, giving a good if slightly low view of the room; they'd decided that was best, so as to record anything Harry missed because he was looking away, an oft-complained-about issue with the glasses. Harry always preferred to use them as a static recorder anyway, when he could: watching the playback from his own perspective always gave him a peculiar feeling a bit like seasickness.

He hove into view on the screen, escorting a temperamental Eggsy. Hindsight, through the glasses, was significantly better than twenty-twenty: he was broadsided by the look he saw on his own face. He had been worried, he knew that - but to see it so plainly, and not just worry, fondness -

He looked reflexively at Asher and Stephens. They didn't know him, and objectively speaking there was little enough sign; they didn't seem to have noticed. He didn't look at Merlin.

Still, it all felt uncomfortably exposing - ironic, given what he'd been having Eggsy do for him. He brooded over that for a while, and was distracted by Stephens pulling a face in his peripheral vision, there and very quickly gone again.

He tuned back into the video. Eggsy had just offered him a blowjob, masturbation or something else, which explained Stephens' reaction. He didn't watch the video after that, looked at Stephens and Asher instead. He was now looking studiously blank. She had a small approving smile on her face.

"Can we pause a moment," she said, when they reached the point at which Harry admitted himself. Merlin did, and she said, "Well, I still can't say I'm delighted, but with this context I can see why you had to act as you did, Agent Galahad. If you'd lied then you couldn't have brought him in later. Quite impressive, actually, that he managed to put it all together."

Harry glanced at Merlin. "He's observant," he said, in the most neutral tone he could dredge up. "I think he'll do very well when he's consciously working on it."

"And then he went on to give you this?" Stephens said, leafing through the paper with Eggsy's assessment of the current construction of Baker's gang. "In that case, I don't think we need to see more. Presumably it's all here."

"I would prefer to watch," Asher said in a way that brooked no argument. Stephens subsided. She nodded to Merlin and he pressed play.

It was less awkward watching after that, for Harry, more businesslike. And he approved of Asher's wanting to see it for herself: she at least appreciated that spymastering was more of an art than a science, built of the delicate interpersonal chemistry between the principals.

Eggsy had come because he hated Baker; he would stay because he built something with Harry that might be functional, but would be no less real for it.

"So, what are you?" Eggsy was saying. "Police? You don't look like no copper."

"I'm not with the police," Harry had said. Eggsy had relaxed a bit at that, without seeming to notice it; his associations with the police were evidently not good.

"What do you do, then? But you wanna take my stepdad down, yeah?" Eggsy was saying, now eager, on the tape.

"I work for an organisation that's interested in Dean Baker's activities, yes," video-Harry said. 

"He's a bastard," Eggsy said with conviction.

"We think so," Harry said. "We're looking for... help to understand Baker. What he does, who he works with."

Eggsy was nodding. "I can do that."

God, he was so keen. Harry focused away from the video, through the glass, and his gaze met Merlin's; he looked grave.

"Are you sure?" Harry had pressed gently. "I was hoping you could help me." He hadn't consciously noticed the subtle change in Eggsy's body language at the time, but he saw it now, a bit of a shift back, curling in very slightly, protective. He heard how he'd responded, switching from talking about 'we' to making it personal, making it about Eggsy and himself. "I understand if it would be difficult for you. Nothing will happen to you if you don't want to."

Eggsy had opened back up, then, had looked determined. "I want to. The shit he gets up to, you don't even know. You're gonna bang him up, yeah? Get him away from my mum?"

"That's the plan," Harry said. "Not just him, though. I'd want to find out more about what he's doing, first. Get as many of them as we can."

Eggsy had looked satisfied at that. It wasn't clear on the tape, but Harry remembered his eyes had been bright and his smile glowing. It had made him look young: or rather, it had stripped him of the air of disappointment and hardness that usually clung to him; it had made him look the seventeen he was. "Good. Who'd you know about? You want me to tell you who he hangs around with? They was all there on Saturday."

"Yes," Harry said. "That would be a good place to start."

"All right," Asher said and Merlin stopped the video again. "Presumably the rest is all here in this report."

"And what was Saturday?" Stephens added.

"Mostly a social event," Harry said. "Eggsy tells me this happens at his home fairly often. He's in a good position there; if he hangs around to make the lager and cigarettes runs Baker doesn't object to his drinking a few of them."

"Mostly social?" Asher said.

"They're also getting involved in some higher level drug dealing," Harry said. "Worth remembering if we're in need of a reason to bring any of them in."

"That's fairly new," Asher said. "We know the dealers in that area. It's well covered already. Baker's always run cannabis, but only ever the odd bit of anything harder."

"They're getting more confident then," Stephens said. "If they're content to challenge the existing supply."

Harry nodded. "I'm planning to take that up with Eggsy. He does know Baker has made some contacts in France."

"He came across very quickly," Stephens said. "You're sure he was being honest with you?"

"Yes," Harry said. "He has belligerence instead of a poker face. I'm seeing him again this evening; if he's going to pull out it will be then."

"I don't think he will," Asher said. "He hates Baker. You were right about that."

That barely seemed worth dignifying with a response; had she thought he was recently fallen from the back of a turnip truck? He inclined his head, neither agreeing or demurring, and she straightened the papers in front of her and put them away in her leather handbag.

"I'll go through these this afternoon. Your plans for this evening?"

"Logistics," Merlin said. "We'll be providing Eggsy with a phone. Galahad will talk to him about reporting in. We suggest they continue to use the prostitution as a cover story. Eggsy can tell Baker or anyone else who asks he's got an overly interested client who wants to be able to get hold of him, gives him money and presents, that sort of thing."

"Very sensible," Stephens said, with a poorly hidden look of distaste. How he hadn't got over this yet, Harry didn't know.

"We'll meet again at the end of the week then," Asher said. "See how it's going. My office will be in touch."

"Very well," Merlin said, and there was some hustle and bustle, and they were all, blissfully, gone.

“I think I might come along with you this evening,” Merlin said, coming back into the room. Harry looked away from the screen, paused on Eggsy looking down, lashes casting shadows over his cheekbones; Merlin was watching him intently. “Meet him. Never know when you might get hit by a bus, Harry.”

“If you want,” Harry said. "Still worried about the professionalism, are you?"

Merlin didn't look appreciative of the teasing. "More worried than before."

Thirty years, Harry had been in this job: he didn't know what he'd done to deserve all this distrust.

***

He’d kept the same room, so Eggsy knew where to come, and he knocked at nine sharp. Harry waved to Merlin to stay at the table where he was, inevitably, getting on with some work, and opened the door himself. 

Eggsy slouched in with a wary, slightly disgruntled expression on his face. He'd gone away and properly thought about things, then; that was good. Harry had come prepared to reassure and it would have been worse to be dealing with a bombastic young man.

"Who're you?" Eggsy said, combatively, when he saw Merlin. He glanced at Harry, the bed, Merlin again in one smooth motion. Harry saw him notice there was no money on the table, today; whatever conclusions he drew from that seemed to settle him.

"This is my colleague," Harry said. Merlin stood up and offered a hand to Eggsy. Eggsy eyed it like it was a poisonous snake, shook it quickly, and retreated back a little, nearer to Harry. Harry responded in kind by moving an unobtrusive step closer to him: _you're safe here. I'm going to look after you_.

"You from the police?" Eggsy said. Harry made a private note not to let Asher meet him, or insist on sending any of her people. Eggsy clearly wouldn't take well to it.

"No," Harry said. "Merlin is from my organisation. He looks after the technical side of things."

Eggsy gave them both an unfriendly look. Harry saw something in it, caught the thread of thought and let it unspool into a memory of the encounter when Eggsy had been injured. Anxiety: he was worried and covering it.

"You never actually said where you was from," Eggsy said. "I only thought about it this morning. What's your organisation if it's not the police? If you just want Dean out the way so’s you can come in -"

"We're a security agency," Merlin said. Merlin was a big man, and with his shaved head could look intimidating, but his lilting Scottish accent was somehow inherently believable - Harry had adopted it for missions more than once - and in his soft, dark green woollen jumper he looked comfortable, trustworthy. Eggsy’s face softened a bit when Merlin spoke; Harry noted it with a stab of out-of-place irritation. "We're not the police, but we are working with them. We’ve got the authority to put your stepdad away, you needn’t worry about that."

Eggsy appeared to consider this, looking a bit happier. Harry was pleased they'd managed to get through it so far without having to say anything either way about the non-governmental status; some people cut up about that.

"Okay," Eggsy said. He looked at Harry. "I've got other questions."

"Of course," Harry said. "Whatever makes you comfortable. Do you want something to eat? I can ring for a delivery."

"No, I'm all right," Eggsy said. He glanced round the room again and sat on the bed, leaving the other place at the table for Harry.

Whatever else there was to say about the minor dissatisfactions of the Holiday Inn, the beds were generously sized and the sheets were a pristine white: Eggsy looked small against them, a splash of colour in a bright red hoodie which hung too-big on his narrow shoulders and a yellow cap casting a slightly sickly air over his fine features.

“What do you want to know from me?” Harry said, keeping his voice gentle.

“What do you want me to do?” Eggsy said. “Just - tell you stuff, like yesterday, or…”

“Whatever you’re happy with,” Harry said. "Honestly, if you’re willing to be more active, that would be welcome. But just information, just now and again if you prefer, is good.” He let his voice go low. “You’re in a unique position, in Baker’s home."

“The things you told us yesterday will be very useful,” Merlin said. Harry glanced at him, but he was watching Eggsy, his face kind. “You’ve got a good eye.” As Harry had thought, Eggsy looked intrigued, a little hopeful at the idea of being needed, and for what he in particular could bring.

“You pick stuff up,” Eggsy said. “I wanna know -” he firmed his lips and looked resolute, switching his gaze from Harry to Merlin and back again. “I want some things, too. If I’m going to help you.”

“Of course,” Harry said.

“You got to keep my mum out of it,” Eggsy said. He nodded firmly, but his eyes when they met Harry’s were pleading. “That’s the most important thing. She don’t know anything, she doesn’t see what he’s really like - she won’t _go_ -”

“We can protect your mother,” Merlin promised, leaning forward, almost certainly while making big earnest bambi eyes, Harry thought grumpily. He had more sympathy than Harry; no doubt he actually had some finer feelings on the subject, while Harry thought uncharitable thoughts about the protection owed to a woman who didn’t seem to have managed much in the way of it for her son. “There’s no suggestion she’s involved in any of Baker’s activities. And if she were to get caught up... well, we can protect her. Protect you as well.”

Eggsy shook his head impatiently. “Nah, that’s - it’s just her that matters. Especially now.” His hands clenched convulsively on his thighs. “She’s pregnant, yeah, just a few months along. But she needs looking after. She's only got me."

“Baker’s to be a father?” Harry said. Merlin sat back slowly and they shared a look. That was - an unforeseen complication. Men could become very different, when a child entered the picture. Priorities changed. There was, for instance, only one father currently among the active agents in Kingsman. Parenthood tended to put even the most talented knight off the prospect of violent death. 

“He don’t give a fuck,” Eggsy said dismissively, with a curled lip. “He never even asks how she is.”

Of course, not everyone took impending parenthood the same.

“That’s why I was… that’s why I need money. For Mum and my little... for the baby,” Eggsy said. He shot a glance at Merlin, part-embarrassed and part-belligerent, then once again to Harry, and they shared a brief private look.

The boy had his pride, of course. He must have realised Merlin would know what had passed between him and Harry, but Harry understood his wanting to elide it in conversation. His voice and face had gone abruptly sweet when he’d mentioned his little brother or sister. He was obviously deeply attached already to his growing family, no matter that the child was Baker’s.

“We can provide money,” Harry said. Then, discreetly, “Baker won’t ask questions about where it’s come from?”

“No,” Eggsy said, red on his cheeks now and his tone pitched somewhere between defiant and sullen. “Not as long as I give him his cut. I was thinking about it - if I make out you’re well into me - that you keep coming back and I’m milking you for all I can get -”

Well, that was the same plan Kingsman had come up with, so it was fine; Harry didn’t know if that said something good about Eggsy’s foresight, or something rather unfortunate about his own.

“Good,” Merlin said warmly. “We were going to suggest about the same thing ourselves.” Eggsy gave him a pleased look, then looked at Harry to see how he’d taken it. Harry nodded and smiled and Eggsy smiled back at being approved of. 

“It gives you an excuse to have this,” Harry said. He reached for the small white box that had been sitting by Merlin’s elbow and chucked it to Eggsy, who barely seemed to need to look at it to pluck it casually out of the air.

Then he saw what he had in his hands, the familiar logo, and opened up the box reverently, looking as open-mouthed and delighted as any teenage boy handed a brand new latest-model iPhone and told it was for him. “Shit, really?” he said, clutching the phone.

“You can tell anyone who asks you’ve a new friend who wants to be able to get hold of you,” Harry said. “Which is even true, I suppose.”

“It has one or two special features which will key to your fingerprint soon as you set it up,” Merlin said. “Some numbers programmed in already, that sort of thing. For the love of God don’t take it into an Apple store if anything goes wrong, what we’ve done to it definitely invalidates the warranty.” 

“Are you my tech support, then?” Eggsy said, and he gave Merlin a beaming, cheeky grin. Harry gave Merlin a sly look and saw him looking endeared despite himself, and taken aback at it; he had told Merlin the boy was engaging enough, under the coarseness.

“For my sins,” Merlin said. “If you can start it up now - there you go -” they both watched as Eggsy whipped through setting up a passcode and fingerprint recognition, checked through the installed apps at dizzying, absorbed speed, and showed every sign of settling in for the evening to explore his new toy.

“All right,” Merlin said and Eggsy looked up. “I think my work here is done.” He shuffled his tablet into what the bearded infants of the tech team insisted on referring to as his ‘manbag’, which everyone else had picked up because it pissed him off, and got up. “I wanted to make sure the phone got to you okay, and I wanted us to meet, so you know me now. Anyone else tells you they work with us - don’t believe them. Okay?”

“Okay,” Eggsy said. He stood up and offered his hand again, more enthusiastically this time. “Cheers, bruv. Nice to meet you.”

Merlin shook his hand. “Looking forward to working with you.”

He clapped Harry on the shoulder and left without a backward glance, leaving a somewhat awkward silence behind him, Eggsy’s pleasure at the new phone fading away as he turned thoughtful.

“So what’s your name, then?” Eggsy said, after a minute, fidgeting with the box still in his lap. Harry wanted to go over to him, take the boy’s hands in his and still them, just because he was so painfully transparent. “If he’s Merlin. What should I call you?”

“Harry,” said Harry. “It’s my real name.”

“Oh,” Eggsy said. “You can call me Eggsy, if you want. That’s what I go by.” There was an uncomfortable pause. “You probably already know that.”

“Eggsy. Thank you,” Harry said, choosing to respond more to the first part than the ending. He did indeed already think of Eggsy as Eggsy, but the concession was well-meant, and graceful enough.

Christ, but this was proving harder work than he remembered, although when he’d managed spies before they’d been older, harder, and everyone had been entirely clear what risks were being run. Stepping around Eggsy’s youthful sensibilities and the less than elegant situation was tricky.

"What about the bloke I saw in the pub?" Eggsy said. "He works with you."

"Do you mean -”

"The one who borrowed Dean's wallet. He just copied that card, yeah? Dean would've gone mental if he'd been missing money and he don't carry much else."

"You'd only see him if something happened to both Merlin and me. Jay, you can call him," Harry said. Codenames were all very well, but 'James', or for that matter 'Harry', were considerably less conspicuous than Lancelot or Galahad. "You did very well to catch him, you know. We've all taken the piss out of him for it."

Eggsy looked smug. "He was dead obvious."

Harry wasn't sure about that. James could be overconfident and was often too flashy, but he wasn't that bad. If he'd genuinely been obvious he likely wouldn't have got out of the pub without bloodshed, not to mention that he’d got out of many dicier situations still alive.

No, Eggsy was remarkable; it seemed unlikely he didn't realise that. He had that combination of cockiness and defensiveness of someone who knew they had more brains than the people around them but hadn’t the insight yet to work out why it didn't seem to be getting them anywhere.

"Tell me about the card you think he wanted," he said.

"It's not really Dean's," Eggsy said. "Some frog gave him it when they went for the sauce for Karen's wedding."

"Do you know why?" Harry said.

"Probably not so's he could buy a flatscreen," Eggsy said complacently. "Came home with it the other week. 52 inch."

That explained the Dixons entry Gwen had found on the account. God, but people like Baker were predictable. It made Harry feel old.

"We're interested in what else he's buying," Harry said. "Less so in the consumer electronics."

Eggsy shrugged and his hand went possessively to the pocket where he'd put his new phone away. "What about the phone?" he said.

"Your iPhone?" Harry checked, not sure what he was asking.

"No, the phone he got with the card," Eggsy said. "They keep ringing him. I can hear him from my room, he does that thing where he thinks foreigners understand English if he just shouts it loud enough." 

"We weren't aware of a phone," Harry said. "That's helpful. Thank you."

"I can lift it, if you want it," Eggsy said. "He doesn't take it out with him."

"No," Harry said. "No, it's important that he carries on with what he's doing for now, you understand, but with you helping us to know what that is. Do you know the number?"

"I can get it," Eggsy said. For having demonstrated sensible misgivings about the situation as a whole he seemed supremely nonchalant about the actual mechanics. Harry would need to keep an eye on that, make sure Eggsy wasn't underselling the difficulty of what he was asked to do. At this point there was more value in a low-level spy with longevity than one at the heart of things but quickly caught.

"Yes, please," Harry said. "At some point we might ask you to borrow it for a bit. But only if you think you can do it safely."

"Yeah, 'course," Eggsy said flippantly.

Harry leaned forward and clasped his hands in front of him, aiming for a sort of non-overbearing concern. "Eggsy. I need to be sure that you've thought about this. That you understand what could go wrong, the gravity. I will do my best to keep you safe, you have my word -"

"But I'm the one who's in it," Eggsy said, flinty-eyed. "You don't need to tell me about shit going wrong, bruv. I know what I live with, yeah? More than you."

Harry nodded slowly. "Very well."

"Okay," Eggsy said; his jaw was set and the atmosphere in the room had gone chilly. "Look, I'm gonna head off. I've got your number, I'll text you the one for Dean's phone."

"Thank you," Harry said. "I'll be in touch about another meeting. If anything happens to the phone - or anyone tries to happen to you - there are some details stored in the notes app. Contact details. The address of one or two places you can go, where you'll be safe. Try and memorise them, please. Don't write them down anywhere."

"Okay," Eggsy said, looking a bit unnerved. Perhaps the idea that he might need somewhere to escape to made it more real than Harry's clumsy attempt to have him risk-assess; Harry had read that one wrong, he'd learn for next time. "I will. I've got a good memory."

"Good," Harry said. "Goodbye, Eggsy. Thank you for coming back tonight." Eggsy nodded and headed out; Harry watched him, waiting. 

Sure enough:

"So -" Eggsy said, his hand on the door, his back to Harry, and Harry braced himself; this would be the nub of it, whatever 'it' was. "The... my…. me being... you know. You and me. That's not...?"

"No," Harry said immediately. "Not at all. I needed a reason to get close to you. You might feel rather badly done by, I know. I apologise for the deceit. But no. I won’t be making any further… impositions. You needn't worry about me."

Eggsy had turned around by now and was scrutinising him. "Okay," he said, gave a tiny nervous-looking smile and Harry felt an odd stressed flutter reminiscent of school exams just passed by the skin of his teeth. Eggsy added quietly, "I wasn't worried." He scratched at the back of his neck and said, "If this is my job instead, then - I was making four, five hundred a week, sometimes."

"I'm good for it," Harry said.


	6. Chapter 6

"Quite a sweet-natured lad, I thought," Merlin said the next day, shovelling eggs and bacon into his face like it was his last meal. "Looking after his mum like that."

James growled faintly, clutching his coffee cup; he was holding a grudge. Harry spared him a disparaging glance. The babble of the dining room rose and fell gently around them.

"He's loyal," Harry said. "Can you confirm the pregnancy?"

"About eighteen weeks along, according to her GP's office," Merlin said. "Eggsy's been going to her appointments with her."

Harry stared into space for a moment, contingencies laying themselves out in neat paths in his mind. "Can you have the identities team start work on a back-up for them? Standard relocation and protection."

"They're already on it," Merlin said. "Just need to let them know this morning to take maternity arrangements and an infant into account."

"Good," Harry said. "And - university. Have them get his educational record in order."

"Do you think he'd cope with university?" James said.

"If he's got the discipline for this, he'd do brilliantly at university," Harry said. "He might even go to a lecture occasionally. Rather than spend three years shagging and drinking and then break into the office at the end and have his final records reflect an unearned first."

James smiled nostalgically. "Well, I'm here, aren't I? I daresay I got the education I needed."

"Eggsy doesn't have your advantages," Merlin said, pointing his fork at James. "He'd need the paperwork."

"Much obliged," Harry said and started to collect up his crockery and pour out a fresh coffee to take to his office with him.

"Harry," James said. His voice was serious and Merlin and Harry both gave him their full attention, as they always did when he chose to warrant it. "And if he doesn't have the discipline for this?"

It was a good question. If Eggsy pulled out, they wouldn’t have anything further to do with him. If he were caught... Did they understand the lengths Baker would go to, if he found himself betrayed? Maybe. The French mostly unknown quantity: probably not. "Then university won't come up, will it?"

***

“And he’s come through with the number?” Asher said. She was wearing an exquisitely-done matte fuchsia lipstick today, and a very clicky pair of pewter-coloured loafers; Harry rather suspected this meant she was in a good mood. Her minion was looking a bit less cowed, which supported the theory.

“The next day,” Harry said, not without some pride. That had been yesterday. Eggsy had texted the phone number around ten in the morning, a French number, and had sent pictures of the phone and the ejected sim card without having to be asked. The tap was already in place and the electronic surveillance team was mapping the numbers it called, and the numbers they called; the network analysis would be complete within the week.

(Eggsy had texted twice more after that. Once to tell Harry that Baker and his boys were going out Thursday night to drink in Hammersmith, which was apparently enough of a break in routine to be notable, and once an anodyne observation about some old spy film he’d been watching. Harry had responded to both within minutes, hoping to encourage Eggsy’s keeping in touch with him. Which had resulted in the suggestion, this morning, that he install Snapchat; Harry still wasn’t quite sure what to do with that one, but Merlin was all for it so he’d probably end up having to do it.)

"We'll have some preliminary findings with you in the next few days," Merlin said.

"That will be very helpful," Stephens said. "Things have gone quiet at the French end, I'm told. If you can find a way in to their electronic communications that would be very welcome. There are some suspicions emerging that they might be working further afield than just Britain."

"Ambitious for a group without an awful lot of success of their own to show," Harry said. 

"New leadership, is the current theory," Stephens said. "With - new ideas. There's rather more interest being taken in this operation now. If the boy works out, he could be providing some very valuable intelligence."

"It's still early days but he's over the first jump," Harry said. "There's no reason at this point Eggsy shouldn't be effective."

"For our part, there's been an unusual level of criminal activity on that estate in the last few weeks," Asher said. 

"A spike?" James said.

"A sharp reduction," she said. "Outside of what we think is going on with the drugs, there's been less of the petty crime and anti-social behaviour complaints. Trying to keep their noses clean."

"I'll ask Eggsy about it," Harry said. "See if there's been a deliberate instruction."

"We'd like objective data, if possible," Stephens said smoothly, and Harry caught a brief glance between him and Asher, as if it were an agreed step. "Something you can - share with us directly. Eggsy is in a position to set up surveillance."

"Surveillance on Baker's home is surveillance on his home, on himself and his mother," Harry said. "I was _intending_ to work up to it."

"We'd like something sooner," Asher said. 

Harry and Merlin shared a glance. "I'll do what I can," Harry said.

"Good," Asher said. "I do like it when we're all getting along."

"On we go," Merlin said, once they'd all left, James escorting them out so he could charm them into forgiveness for buggering up the credit card lift. "I can have the bug ready for you in the morning."

"Great," Harry said dourly, and started writing a text to Eggsy to meet the following evening. 

***

Eggsy turned up with a polystyrene tray of chips and curry. It didn’t look terribly good but the smell was appetising, which was fortunate as it filled the whole room in about twenty seconds. Harry sat down opposite him at the table, and leaned over to push an envelope to Eggsy and pinch a chip in one flowing motion.

Eggsy checked inside the envelope, licked his fingers, and made the five hundred pounds inside disappear into several different pockets. Then he eyed Harry - informal in shirt and a slightly loosened tie - and took off his hoodie, draping it as carefully over the back of his chair as Harry treated any of his bespoke suit jackets. He even condescended to take off his snapback, which he also hung over the back of the chair.

“How are you getting on?” Harry said. He chose another chip and dipped it fastidiously into the curry sauce, getting it good and covered.

Eggsy watched with crinkled eyes. “All right, yeah,” he said. He was hunched over the table in a way that made Harry wince, first for his spine and secondarily for the lost art of posture, watching in a cursory way the television Harry had put on for the background noise Eggsy seemed to like.

Once he’d finished the chips he sat back, sprawling in that uncouth, faintly defiant way of young men everywhere. Was this what the newspaper columnists were moaning about when they said nobody bothered to have dinner properly at the table anymore, with cutlery and conversation? If so, Harry congratulated himself on never having had any children of his own.

He wanted to dredge up the stentorian tones of the teachers of his youth - not ones to spare the rod and spoil the child - and tell Eggsy to sit up straight, show some manners, bloody sort himself out. Not a helpful instinct. Eggsy felt comfortable enough with their new arrangement to behave normally: that was good.

“I’ve started putting it about a bit that I’ve picked up a fan,” Eggsy said. “In case my mates notice an old rich bloke hanging around.”

“I’m going to let the ‘old’ pass,” Harry said.

“I tried looking you up,” Eggsy said. “Didn’t find nothing.”

“We’re not completely awful at what we do, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Eggsy shrugged. “It passed the time.”

“It doesn’t put you in an awkward position?” Harry said. “Telling people about a - male admirer.”

“It’s a council estate, not fucking Victorian times,” Eggsy snapped. “I’m not saying I’m out there telling everyone I’m sucking dick for cash, but if I can get a few quid out of a bloke calling me fit most people think that’s good business.”

“I’m not criticising,” Harry said. He had to remember this was still very new to Eggsy; it was natural he’d be prickly. “Baker…?”

“Yeah, he knows the score,” Eggsy said, his face stormy. “Like I said, he just wants the money to keep on coming.”

“And your mother?” Harry said, as delicately as he could. If there was a chance she could object at a later date - better to get the obstacles out in the open early, Harry always found. He’d had a lot of operations go bad when he’d just dropped on top of the train, or was just about to cut the wire, or had already poured the toxin. He fucking hated surprises.

Eggsy’s expression slammed shut. “Nobody gets my mum involved in _anything_ , yeah? Not you, not Dean, not any of them fuckers. She’s got enough to worry about.”

“Of course,” Harry said. “It’s useful to know, that’s all.”

Eggsy stared at the TV mutinously. The light from it danced on the planes of his face. He was pale, and the length of his throat was dusted with just-there purple smudges. Someone had had their hand on his throat, some weeks ago now.

The familiar duff duffs of the Eastenders credits sounded; Anne Robinson winked frozen-headedly at them from a plug for some documentary she’d done.

“I do have a new task to ask of you,” Harry said, when the skittering tension had faded enough from Eggsy’s shoulders that he was no longer an immediate flight risk. Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out the bug, a microscopically small audio/video recorder with a satellite uplink, night-vision setting, and broadcast capability.

It was stuck carefully to a sheet of laminate at the moment, and in a new and much-heralded feature needed only to be attached to a wall with any electrical wiring running through it to operate basically forever. Merlin was delighted with it, and happy to have an excuse to test it in the field; the tech who’d led on its development, Rosalie, had nearly wept with pride to see it going out the door and had allowed Harry to have one of the celebratory cupcakes her girlfriend had baked.

He put the small sheet on the table in between them.

“The fuck is that,” Eggsy said.

“It’s a bug,” Harry said. “We’d like - access to Baker’s home. His private conversations.”

Eggsy looked up at him slowly. “His home’s my home.”

“I know that,” Harry said.

“His bedroom is my mum’s bedroom,” Eggsy said, a flush touching at his cheekbones. He blinked furiously, as if trying to beat back images. “No way. No _fucking_ way. You’ve got a fucking cheek -”

“Eggsy,” Harry said, loudly and firmly enough to cut him off. Eggsy did subside; with a glare, but the silence was concession enough. “You and I - we need to be partners. Yes? Friends. When I ask you to do things, they’re not whims. I’m not saying you must say yes to everything. But I will ask you not to _fucking overreact to basic shit_. All right?”

“Yeah, all right,” Eggsy said petulantly. Harry let the moment draw out, watched Eggsy get a grip on himself. Then - that smile again; he really could go far, with that at his disposal. An infectious delighted grin spread across his face and he said, “I ain’t never heard someone who talks like you do swear before.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Harry said wryly. “We’ll call it a no, then, to the bug. Okay?”

“Okay,” Eggsy repeated. He looked back at the TV for a minute, with a slightly glazed look; thinking, not actually watching it. “It’s not, just - I’m not just trying to be awkward, yeah? I started reading all this stuff, yesterday, I went to the library and looked at it there - people talking about, like. Surveillance and -” he hesitated over the word like he hadn’t quite accepted in his mind that it fit, “spying. Secrets, people’s secrets.”

“And it made you think,” Harry said. He was reluctantly impressed: reluctant because it made his life harder, to have Eggsy properly thinking through what he was doing; impressed because it made his life more interesting.

“I’ve never grassed anyone up,” Eggsy said. He faced Harry over the table, and the look in his eyes was painfully vulnerable.

Kingsman had put that look in Harry’s eyes, too, over thirty years ago and in different circumstances, but he well remembered how it felt to know oneself a failure at living up to a moral principle that had been a foundation stone of one’s self. 

Eggsy said, “But when you was right there in front of me asking, and it was Dean - I didn’t think twice.”

“These are hard questions to reconcile,” Harry said quietly. “I won’t insult you by pretending I have glib answers for you. It’s for you to decide for yourself what’s the right thing to do, by whatever definition of ‘right’ you choose to live by.”

“Do you think about this stuff? With what you do?” Eggsy said.

“Occasionally,” Harry said. “I’ve been doing my job for a long time. When I was younger - constantly.”

“But you think it’s right,” Eggsy said uncertainly. “For me to spy on Dean. For you.”

“Yes,” Harry said. “I do.”

Eggsy looked away, nodded, looked back. He smiled, a bit hopelessly. “All for a bit of drugs. He should’ve stuck to the weed.”

_Fuck_. What the fuck - had he not actually explained to Eggsy, what they were looking for, what the stakes were? If Eggsy had come in as planned - but of course he hadn’t. He’d come to Harry, and when he spoke of a meeting Harry might be interested in Harry had thought they were speaking of the same thing.

“No, Eggsy,” he said calmly. “I’m sorry, I should’ve explained. We’re not interested in your stepfather because of the drugs. It’s the political group he’s involved with - his old EDL friends, and the gang he’s gathered around him here.”

“The send ‘em back where they come from brigade?” Eggsy said, surprised. “What, for reals? Mate, they’re arseholes about all that, definite, but they’re all chat. They don’t do nothing.”

“They’re been linked to a number of crimes over the last few years, and several more recently. Things you might not have even been aware of. And now, Dean’s French friend - the one who gave him the card and the phone, the one you hear him talking to, is a member of a Parisian terrorist group,” Harry said. 

He leaned forward; he’d have liked to touch, perhaps take some of the sting out of what he could see was distressing news, but at the other side of the table Eggsy was too far away. “Quite dangerous people, with dangerous capabilities. My organisation has become involved now because we believe your stepfather, and his group, may be in the early stages of being very dangerous themselves.”

“Are you sure?” Eggsy said; he clearly knew before he even started the question that it was a pointless one. He wiped a hand over his face, leaned his elbows on the table and clasped his hands behind his neck, his hair flopping down over his bowed head.

“Quite sure,” Harry said. “I’m sorry.” He was. Eggsy almost certainly would’ve said he had no illusions about Baker to shatter, but even Harry was still sometimes surprised by people’s capacity for unexpected terribleness.

“So it’s not -” Eggsy said, trailed off. Harry waited for him to collect his thoughts. “I know what you’re thinking, yeah well what do you expect from a bunch of chavs, but they’re not - some of them are just out and out bastards, they’d do anything, but the others are good lads, yeah? They’d help you out. My mate Ryan’s brother, he hangs round with Dean sometimes, his bird’s from Hungary, they’ve got two kids. He’s not a fucking - terrorist or something.”

“I wasn’t thinking that,” Harry said, feeling guilty; he _had_ assumed too much, probably, about the people Eggsy knew and where he’d come from: Asher and Stephens had acted like it was all too normal and he’d let them, although that was one of his own foundations, the belief that people could reinvent themselves, could rise above their former selves. “People don’t have to be bad in themselves to do bad things, I’m afraid. It’s not simple.”

“No,” Eggsy muttered. He jerked upwards, yanked his hoodie and cap off the back of the chair and started to put them on. “I’ve gotta think about this. I’ll be in touch, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, with a sinking feeling. If this was the last time he saw the boy -

But what had he just said? It was up to Eggsy, to decide where to draw his line. The operation was begun: just the information on the credit card and the phone would be enough to get them, eventually.

He sat for a long time after Eggsy left, looking at the space where he’d been.

***

He got a text, the next morning, Thursday.

_I’ll plant the bug._


	7. Chapter 7

"... And the Pope was delighted, which is the main thing," Billy was saying when Harry reached their table in the pub on Friday, concluding the grand story of his latest mission going by the way James had his head on Gwen's shoulder pretending to be asleep, while she played Pandemic on her phone.

"Good man," Adam said kindly. He’d finally turned in his latest report so was technically back in the rotation for a new operation, but had failed a routine fitness test spectacularly badly and was now at the mercies of Dave the Gym (an ex-military harridan with thighs like oak trees, rumoured to eat three steaks a day and a dozen raw eggs) until he could run a seven minute mile again. He spent most evenings in the pub complaining about it and trying to get people to listen to his chest and the wheeze he was sure he’d developed. "Good work, there. Sounds marvellous."

"Operation went well then," Harry said, for the simple joy of the way everyone at the table not Billy gave him a panicked look, lest the chatty bugger start all over again from the beginning.

"Well enough," Billy said. "Hullo, Harry." He stood up and they shook hands. Billy was technically one of the younger agents: he wasn't yet forty but looked and acted forty-five, had always looked and acted forty-five, and would probably look and act forty-five unto infinity.

"Drinks, then?" Harry said. "Usual?"

Everyone nodded and Harry leaned his Rainmaker against the corner of the booth carefully and went to the bar, where young Max from the village was already starting to pull the pints.

He brought the drinks back in two trips and then sank into the soft cracked leather of the booth's seats, with a sigh.

"Long week?" Adam said. "I sympathise. Three hours, I was in the gym yesterday. If I shut my eyes I can still hear Dave shouting at me."

"It's fine," Harry said. The Guinness was pleasantly cold against his hands and in his mouth; he focused on the sensations for a few moments, letting it calm him.

"You need to get your end away," Billy diagnosed. "Excuse my language, Gwendolyn."

"He's getting that," James said. "Or he was."

"Not the young man on the op?" Adam said. " _Harry_."

"Only in the line of duty, and he didn't enjoy it," Gwen said solemnly. "I was on the glasses so I know."

"Gwen," Harry said, with a deliberate edge to his voice. He was used to the teasing himself - but that was Eggsy's privacy. She raised an eyebrow at him.

"I watched yesterday's discussion, actually," she said, turning the conversation smoothly in another direction. "Just because he's not in school doesn't mean you have to give him some turgid philosophy A-level, Harry. Does he know you're recording? He wasn't happy about the bug."

"No, he doesn't. You know what it's like," Harry said irritably. "You forget you've got the specs on."

"I don't," James said. "I forget I haven't. That's why I never wear them."

"You never wear them because you think they make you look like a ponce," Billy pointed out. 

"And you're not wrong," Adam said amiably.

"You know, I found some very nice frames last month and brought them in,” James said darkly, “and asked Christopher if he thought Merlin could make them up into standard issue, and he said they were utterly outside the Kingsman aesthetic. The Kingsman aesthetic! I ask you. He's got one of those Instagrams, you know. All pictures of suit seams and loose leaf tea. He doesn't even use loose leaf tea. He drinks PG Tips."

"Nothing wrong with the Kingsman aesthetic," Harry said. He stroked one of his own lapels and added, "Traditional style, James."

"What about personality?" he complained. 

"Surplus to requirements, old chap," Adam said. "They let you have your pinstripes and your pocket handkerchiefs, don't they? Keep your personality there, if you must."

"Charlotte particularly thought those glasses would suit me," James said, in the careful way of a man repeating a law that had been laid down to him. "She got quite sniffy about it when I had to tell her they wouldn't do."

"That's all still on, is it?" Harry said. "The lovely Charlotte and her charming parents?"

"I thought you were romancing young Savannah," Billy said. 

"How on earth did you hear about that?" James said. "You've been back ten minutes! And no, I'm not romancing her. Not at all. We had one or two friendly beverages."

"Oh dear," Harry said. He patted James' arm. "Wriggled off the hook, did she? Bad luck, my boy."

"Somebody accidentally showed her the Manila footage," Gwen said, a small smile threatening at the edges of her lips. James went bone white. "After that, she unaccountably lost interest."

"Manila?" Adam said.

"The one with the bucket of soapy water and the live eels," Gwen said blandly.

"Ah, how could I forget."

"I'm going to the gents," James said faintly. They all watched him stumble away. 

"Whoops," Gwen said. "Somebody go and check on him in a few minutes in case he's weeping into a loo roll."

***

Eggsy had texted the address of a coffee shop on Kennington Park Road where he wanted to meet, 11am on Saturday.

It was an interesting choice, presumably made in service to his thinking about the disguise of Harry’s romantic interest in him, but Harry wasn’t entirely sure who Eggsy was expecting would see them there. He’d have to let Eggsy steer on the subject of how they should interact in public, where and how to touch, how often.

The coffee shop was also a clever idea if Eggsy wished to avoid further unpleasant conversation, as they could hardly speak freely in public; fine for this encounter, where Harry only really needed to pass over the bug, but it wouldn’t do too often.

He stood in front of his wardrobe and debated what to wear.

It was a struggle. Professional pride demanded he look like a middle-aged man at play, of the type to be absurdly and somewhat pitiably enthralled by a very much younger man and trying eagerly to impress.

On the other hand, pride pride wished him never to appear in public looking anything even slightly resembling a middle-aged man at play, of the type absurdly and somewhat pitiably enthralled by a very much younger man and trying eagerly to impress.

He cast a wistful glance at the beautiful suits that took up most of his wardrobe, hanging in a neat row, pressed shirts to the side and shined shoes below. This was why the tailor side of Kingsman still did good business: no self-respecting man over 45 should ever bloody leave the house in anything other than a suit.

In the end he put together a costume of black trousers, a black shirt, and a grey cardigan that was much beloved but had never previously been outside the house, so at least this would be a nice outing for it. If he took it with him he just could put it on when he got into Kennington. 

He finished off the outfit with his glasses: it would be useful to have the footage later to review how Eggsy behaved in public with him and whether they had got any unusual attention. He didn’t realise anyone was on the other end until he passed a mirror, at which point the two-way comms clicked into life and Merlin was on the other end saying, “And what have you come as?”

“You try doing yourself up like someone who not only picks up rentboys at my age, but becomes enamoured of them,” Harry snapped. “I don’t know if his idea is that we will be seen, or might be seen...”

“You look like a geriatric ninja,” Merlin said, hurtfully.

“Shut up,” Harry said. “I’m putting a cardigan over it when I get to the coffee shop.”

“My God,” Merlin said, followed by the welcome sound of the connection turning off.

With that happy exchange leaving Harry fuming, he drove like a demon over Battersea Bridge and up through Vauxhall. The traffic was wretched and did nothing to improve his mood, but he was still quite early.

He parked up on the double yellows outside the caff and spent a few minutes in the car, practicing just the right expression of clumsy, anticipatory affection.

***

Eggsy gave the expression a doubtful look, crashing into the shabby seat opposite Harry in a way that got neatly on his last nerve. “Ain't you feeling well?”

“I'm fine,” Harry said, trying not to glare. “Traffic was bad.”

“Traffic’s always bad,” Eggsy said, losing interest. “Where's the suit?”

“It's Saturday,” Harry said, more defensively than he meant. 

“Yeah,” Eggsy said, eyeing the cardigan. “Only, I been telling my mates you had dosh, yeah, that's why I'm letting you, you know.” He made an extremely vulgar blowjob gesture.

“So we are here to be seen,” Harry said, lowering his voice. He wasn't entirely sure by whom, but the place was reasonably full: any of them could have been known to Eggsy. 

“I ain't after the pleasure of your company,” Eggsy said. Harry noted with interest that his accent and speech patterns were quite a bit broader, in public and what he probably considered his own territory: he usually adapted to meet Harry halfway, then. Unconscious or deliberate? In any case mimicry was a useful attribute for a spy. He could easily think of a dozen recent operations where someone trustworthy of Eggsy's appearance and habits would have been a significant asset.

If Arthur could have been persuaded to countenance the idea, which was sadly unlikely.

“Indeed,” Harry said. He gave Eggsy a rather sickly, anxious smile and reached for his hand over the table. 

Eggsy palmed the bug competently. His hands were a little sweaty: more nervous about this than he looked, probably.

Harry’s smile slipped into something more real, more reassuring. Eggsy smiled back, relieved, and his fingers tightened on Harry's just slightly before he withdrew. 

It all felt perfectly natural. Harry was surprised to realise it was the first time they'd touched since the revelation of his true identity.

They'd had the opportunity to be seen. Harry had passed over the bug. Eggsy apparently had better things to be doing. Harry ought to leave.

“You gonna buy me a drink, or what?” Eggsy said.

***

He bought Eggsy a dishwater coffee and a thick slab of Victoria sponge, proclaimed by the little sign next to the cake stand to be home-made.   
The slovenly man behind the counter gave him a glowering, incredulous look, which under the circumstances Harry was prepared to admit he deserved.

Eggsy stirred three packets of sugar into his coffee and nudged the cake at Harry with an enquiring look. Harry shook his head, curling his fingers around his breakfast tea, and Eggsy fell on the sponge as if he hadn’t eaten in about six days. He licked his fingers artlessly after each bite; Harry wasn’t entirely sure whether it was supposed to be part of the cover, or not.

“You know this area well?” Harry asked. It was one of those slightly odd parts of London, more a thoroughfare than a village, unless one lived there, with an A-road and a number of fried chicken shops. And the cricket, of course, which was about the only reason Harry had ever been previously.

Eggsy shrugged. “Yeah, suppose. I went to school round here.”

“Secondary?” Harry said. He didn’t know much about Eggsy’s schooling, save for Merlin’s confirmation that it had gone badly.

“Yeah,” Eggsy said. He swigged his horrible coffee with every appearance of enjoyment. Harry felt wistful for the machine in the R&D department at the mansion, which had been engineered and tweaked and perfected within an inch of its life by thirty bright-eyed young things who never drank or ate anything that couldn’t be described as artisinal, and which produced espresso that could have got a reasonably-sized rocket to the moon.

“Get any GCSEs?” Harry said, sipping his tea.

Eggsy gave him a narrow-eyed look that spoke of recriminations, next time they weren’t in a public place where Eggsy was supposed to be putting on a show of stringing Harry along. He said in a sweetly fuck-you tone, “Eleven.”

“Good for you,” Harry said. He honestly didn’t mean it _quite_ as condescendingly as it came out.

“Cs mainly,” Eggsy said. “Two A stars.”

“Ah,” Harry said. “Well, better lazy than stupid, I suppose.”

Eggsy gave him a long look that transmuted slowly into a trembling smile and a smoky doe-eyed gaze, obliging Harry to develop an expression of badly suppressed passion, the wretched little swine.

“I’m a graduate of the university of life, mate,” Eggsy said. “It ain’t fucking Oxford, but it’ll do.”

“Please,” Harry said, with an affected wince. “I’m a Cambridge man.”

“You’re a bellend,” Eggsy said, but there wasn’t heat in it. He chased some crumbs round his plate and licked them off. The second joint of the ring finger on his right hand, his dominant hand, was very subtly swollen; broken in the past, likely when he was quite young, and taken to the doctor too late. Harry put his mug down.

A young man crashed into the seat next to Eggsy and appropriated the last bite of cake, which he chewed with his mouth open, surly expression fixed on Harry. Harry raised an eyebrow at Eggsy. 

“Alright, bruv,” Eggsy said. There was a faint tremor of awkwardness in his voice and he shot Harry a pleading look Harry couldn't quite understand. He stayed quiet and Eggsy added, “This is my mate Ryan.”

Ryan of the brother with the Hungarian girlfriend and the friendship with Dean, he presumed, and looked at the lad with slightly more interest. He stared back at Harry with open hostility, crowding Eggsy protectively against the wall.

“Hello, Ryan,” Harry said. 

“Don't fucking come the gent with me, mate,” Ryan said, leaning over the table, “I know what you’s doing to Eggsy, fucking dirty nonce, and I'm fucking watching you.”

“Ryan!” Eggsy said. Ryan put a hand on his shoulder and stared Harry down.

Harry was rather impressed. He gave Ryan an approving smile. 

“ _Harry_ ,” Eggsy said, voice rising with anger. They were drawing attention.

Eggsy looked over Harry's shoulder and then he was bullying an irate Ryan up and away from the table, almost tripping in his haste. Harry wasn't sure whether he was more interested in getting Harry away from Ryan, or Ryan away from Harry.

“Goodbye,” Harry said graciously. Eggsy glared at him on their way out of the door, and Ryan pointed at his own eyes and then Harry in a malevolent watching-you warning.

Harry took his time over his tea, and left a tenner folded under his cup for a tip.

***

He got a text, early on the Sunday. _I didn't know he was going to be there, honest._

Harry thought for some time about how to respond. Round about lunchtime, he sent back, _I didn't mind it. Did the encounter serve as you wanted?_

He didn't get an answer.

***

On Monday morning Harry dressed carefully in the grey pinstripe, his most classic, sharpest suit; it was just possible he was still suffering some after-effects from the geriatric ninja comment. He got to the shop around ten, ready for what he thought of as the commuter shuttle: it was usually full of agents, who tended to keep late hours.

Today the sofa was full of agents, instead. James, Alastair, and Adam were lined up like the three monkeys. Adam was reading a newspaper and eating a bacon sandwich, Alastair was marking up a mission briefing in a manila folder, and James was wearing an extravagantly ugly fedora and sulking.

“Gentlemen,” Harry said. 

“Harry!” Adam said cheerfully, lowering his paper. There were biroed notes surrounding one of the columns: another letter to the bloody editor. “Are you joining our strike?”

“Why the fuck would you be on strike?” Harry said.

“Christopher has refused to allow me to the mansion in my new hat,” James said poisonously. Harry looked behind the counter. Christopher gave him an injured look back: he had a martyrish air, which in Harry's opinion he was enjoying. James said, “Do you like my new hat, Harry?”

“No,” Harry said. “It's terrible. I quite agree with Christopher.”

“Charlotte thought it was charming,” James said.

“I think Charlotte is going to have to go, dear boy,” Adam said sympathetically. “She's riding roughshod over you.”

“Don't you like my hat?” James said, looking crushed. 

“Not at all,” Adam said. “Can't see anybody could, to be honest. You look like a tabloid journalist.”

“Then why are you on strike with him?” Harry said. 

“You know me,” Adam said, folding his newspaper and heaving himself up. “Always on the side of the worker.”

James looked pleadingly at Alastair, who shrugged. “Sorry, no.”

“You're the most rotten bunch,” James complained. “Just because you've been married for a hundred years, Adam, and Harry hasn't had an emotional attachment for about twenty. You've no idea what it's like trying to meet someone special.”

“All of you get up,” Harry said. “Right now. Jesus wept.”

He took the hat off James’ head as he passed through to fitting room one, and handed it to Christopher. “You may burn this.”

“Thank you, Sir,” Christopher said with quiet satisfaction.

***

Harry took himself directly off to the surveillance team when he got to the estate, winding through the traditionally English country-styled interiors of the main house, through the later wing that could have been any faded office block, and finally through to the glossy Bond-villain corridors and labs of Merlin’s domain. 

“I passed the bug to Eggsy,” he announced, swinging through the door of Merlin's office, an open and darkly-lit space with broad shelving reflecting the slow creep of Merlin's technological passions over the years.

Merlin glanced up from where he was twiddling a pen between his fingers, his face smoothing out of the frown he'd been wearing as he monitored the triple screens in front of his desk. “I assumed so, given he's already planted it. It's been tracking since Saturday evening.”

“What?” Harry said. “Why didn't you alert me?”

“Don't point your suit at me, Harry, you didn't ask,” Merlin said, swinging his chair round and giving Harry his back. “Anyway, it was the weekend.”

“For God’s sake,” Harry said. “Anything, yet?”

“I've asked Gwen to keep an eye on it personally,” Merlin said. 

“ _Thank_ you,” Harry said and walked with stiff irritation back into the main office. The R &D team fell quiet as he swept through, and he heard the rising chatter as he knocked on Gwen’s door and took himself in.

“Morning, Harry,” she said, waving him into a seat. “Had a nice weekend? You're going to ask me about your young man, aren't you? He doesn't waste any time, I'll give him that.”

“I wasn't sure he'd have placed it yet,” Harry said. “He did kick about the idea, initially.”

“Hmm. He's put it in the living room. I think he tidied up first, his mother commented on it. He's rather sweet.” She gave him an inscrutable look. 

“Has he done all right pretending it isn't there?” Harry asked. He didn't know how suspicious Baker might be, or whether he would notice if Eggsy behaved unusually, but his type often had a very good instinct for when someone was up to something round them.

“I'd say so,” she said reassuringly. “A few glances. He seems to try to avoid spending much time in Baker’s vicinity. He is awful, Harry. Speaks to his poor wife like he's just scraped her off the bottom of his shoe.”

“I thought you weren’t particularly taken with Eggsy,” he said.

She looked at her screen, which was paused on a shot of a shabby living room, with the wide-screen television Eggsy had mentioned in pride of place, boxed consumer electronics piled up along a wall (off the back of a lorry? He’d have to ask Eggsy about that), a faded sofa and mismatched armchair. “Well. He seemed a bit of a little bugger, to be honest, but it’s different seeing him at home. His mum made him fish fingers for his Sunday lunch.”

“He’s very young,” Harry said; the words felt as if they were being dragged out of him, although Gwen’s cool, quizzical gaze rested on him without judgement. “We’re asking a great deal of him.”

“He seems reliable enough so far.”

“That wasn’t entirely what I was getting at,” Harry said. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. Anything happen I should know about?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “Baker spent most of Sunday in the pub, apparently. He went out early and Eggsy hadn’t got out of bed, last I looked. Want to watch for a while?”

Harry checked his watch: it was well after ten. They’d have to think about that, if Baker spent so much time out of the house. It had probably been too much to hope for, that he was conducting the bulk of his business from within the house he shared with his pregnant, in-the-dark wife.

“No, thanks,” he decided. “Can you route the feed up to my personal profile?”

“Will do,” she said. “Merlin’s detailed me on the op for now, none of the other techs will be seeing any of it.”

“Good,” he said. “Thanks, Gwen. Let me know immediately if there’s anything… well, anything at all. You know what to look for.”

***

He settled in his office with a cup of tea and the emails pulled up from the latest irritable exchange between Stephens and Merlin, on the ongoing research into the French network. He read three of them, or least looking at them, debating with himself, and couldn’t convince himself he wanted anything other than to turn the framed Stubbs on the wall into a screen to play the feed from Eggsy’s flat.

He turned it on at just the right time: Eggsy emerged from his bedroom shortly after Harry began to watch, looking sleepy and shuffling in pyjama pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt with some cracked cartoon logo on the front. Eggsy checked the room was empty and then his gaze went to the bug. Harry touched his glasses almost unconsciously and they zoomed in until it was almost like he and Eggsy were looking directly into one another’s eyes. For someone rolling out of bed gone eleven in the morning, Eggsy looked tired.

“Morning, babe.” A woman came into the room: Michelle Baker, presumably, with her hair wrapped in a towel and wearing jeans and a tunic.

Harry studied her with some interest. He knew from the background on the Baker case that she was only thirty-seven, but she looked older, lines of anxiety and struggle written in lines on her forehead and at the corners of her eyes; she had a weary, brittle sort of prettiness, and carried herself like she was already shrinking away from anything that could hurt her.

“Morning, Mum,” Eggsy said, and as he smiled at her and gave her a tight hug Harry could see his mother in him. They had similar strong features, wide mouths and classic bone structure. Eggsy looked softer, dressed as he was and relaxed in his own home, Baker safely out of it for the moment, with a mother he clearly loved deeply.

Harry was uncomfortably, and unusually, aware that the only thing that didn’t fit the happy domestic scene was the spymaster on the other side of a bug. He flipped the screen off, trusting Gwen would let him know if there was anything that needed his attention, and went to his emails. 

First, though, he reached for his phone, and texted Eggsy a request to meet in the Holiday Inn that evening. Just to check he wasn’t getting cold feet, now the bug was in place.


	8. Chapter 8

Eggsy slouched in at nine, as usual. Harry let him in and handed over a couple of takeaway menus, an envelope with more cash tucked discreetly between them.

“Thanks,” Eggsy said, looking disconcerted. He took them off Harry and went to sit at the table. Harry sat opposite and watched Eggsy alternately read through them and sneak looks up at Harry.

“See anything you like?” Harry said mildly.

Eggsy blurted, “Did I do it wrong?”

Harry frowned. “Do what wrong?”

“The bug thing! I did it Saturday, truth. Ain't it working?” He was leaning forward, changeable green eyes big; he wanted Harry to believe him.

“No, it's fine, it's working,” Harry said, surprised. “A very trusted colleague is watching it for me, but she's only looking for Dean. You needn't worry about that.”

“Oh,” Eggsy said. He sat back and looked at the menus, his mouth twisting into what might have been unhappiness. “Okay, yeah. I just thought you'd… I dunno, whatever. Can I get a prawn biryani and a cheesy naan?”

“Of course,” Harry said, pulling his phone out. Eggsy folded the menu back to the front, with the phone number, and pushed it over the table to him. “You did very well. Very quick. Thank you.”

Eggsy looked up at him guardedly; he must have liked whatever he saw in Harry's face, and smiled. It was quite transforming, Harry noted detachedly, when it was real; his face glowed with it. Another few years and Eggsy really would be very good looking.

He made the order, watching the way Eggsy sat back and fidgeted. His fingers stilled when he noticed Harry was looking.

“So have you been doing this a long time?” Eggsy said. 

“Long enough,” Harry said. Almost twice as long as Eggsy had been alive, which wasn't a thought he was going to share. “It's a living.”

“Yeah? You got loads of boys like me on the go, then?”

“Not at all,” Harry said; Eggsy looked satisfied. “You're a bit of an unusual case. I'm usually more active, on my jobs.”

“Like Jack Bauer?” Eggsy said, shiny with boyish enthusiasm. 

“Something like,” Harry agreed; he didn't actually know who that was, but it was easy enough to pick up in context. Eggsy was perked up with interest. While rather disappointed by discovering the instinct in himself to show off, he considered what he could tell Eggsy about past missions that was impressive without being disastrously insecure. “A few years ago I dismantled a dirty bomb in Paris, that was exhilarating. It was in the catacombs, big enough to destroy the whole city and leave it uninhabitable for a generation. Photo finish, that one. And then a few years before that I broke up a weapons ring that turned out to be dealing in people trafficking as well, rescued about two hundred people. I was undercover for that one. Bit like how you're helping us now.”

“Wow,” Eggsy said, eating it up obligingly. He rested a gleaming eye on Harry that did for a moment make him feel like James Bond. Eggsy was looking shyly pleased by the comparison to himself and said more haltingly than Harry was used to from him, “How'd you get the job?”

“Our organisation is along the lines of a family business. Although I was proposed by one of my tutors at university,” Harry said.

Professor Spencer had been the absolute model of an absent-minded genius; it had been rather a surprise to find he doubled as a recruiter for his brother, who’d been Geraint at the time. Geraint had died a few years later on a job in Ireland. Harry had caught up with Professor Spencer at the funeral, awkwardly, and avoided the subsequent offers of dinner until they'd stopped. Harry said, “I'd had the idea I’d go into the military before that. My father was a British Army officer.”

Eggsy brightened. “So was mine. In the Marines. He died when I was little. He was saving other soldiers, he was dead brave. I've got his medals.”

“So I understand,” Harry said. He weighed up what he was about to say then added gently, “I think he'd be proud of what you're doing now, Eggsy.”

“Do you think?” Eggsy said. “He was born on my estate and all. I don't remember him much, but we ain't keen on snitches.”

“It's not snitching,” Harry said. “You're protecting people.”

“Yeah,” Eggsy said. He wrinkled up his nose but his eyes were clear, no sign of doubts. “That's good.”

“Have you considered going into the forces yourself?” Harry asked. 

Eggsy smiled. “Yeah! I would, yeah, but my mum, she’s not keen, she said would I wait ‘tils I'm twenty-one. She's not really - she thinks it's their fault, you know. My dad.”

“It's a risk, certainly,” Harry said. 

“So’s crossing the road,” Eggsy complained. “She don't worry about that.”

“She probably does,” Harry said. “Is she looking forward to the new baby?”

“Yeah,” Eggsy said; his face broke into softness at the mention of the baby. “I think so. What do your mum and dad think of it, what you do?”

“I'm afraid they're both dead now,” Harry said. “But I believe they were content that I seemed happy, although they thought I wasn't living up to my potential, with our cover story.”

“Oh, sorry,” Eggsy said. He did look genuinely sad for Harry, the softhearted creature. 

“It was a long time ago. I was a late in life baby. They died during my twenties.”

“What is the cover story?” Eggsy said curiously. 

Harry swiftly ran through reasons for and against dissembling, then said, “We have a shop on Savile Row. Tailoring.”

“That's why you got the nice gear,” Eggsy said approvingly. “Savile Row is posh, innit? Must give you a good excuse to get to know people.”

“That's right,” Harry said, pleased by Eggsy's instinct for getting to the heart of it. “And travel. A good tailor is discreet and can pass through almost any situation unobtrusively.”

Eggsy looked him up and down. “Unobtrusive? You?”

Harry reflected that somewhere Merlin had just burst out laughing and wasn't sure why. “Yes, well, we all have our different strengths.”

Eggsy's smile disappeared and Harry found himself reacting, starting to lean forward to coax the sudden surly defensiveness out of him. Eggsy startled at the movement and as Harry retracted smoothly he followed, as if they were in a dance, a string pulling taut in the space between them, propped his elbows on the table and blinked trustingly up into Harry's eyes.

Harry was grateful for the knock on the door as the takeaway arrived. It had been an absurdly candid conversation.

He dished up the food and Eggsy switched on the TV as if it were a normal mealtime accompaniment. The rest of the evening was casual, harmless, Eggsy's pert opinions on the latest Scandi drama aside; Eggsy left shortly after eleven and Harry felt his heart calm with another successful step forward in the operation.

***

Harry was looking back over his old reports from the case on which he'd first come across Baker when Adam put his head round the door. 

“Coming to the pub, Harry?”

“The pub? It's two in the afternoon,” Harry said. “Shouldn't you be in the gym?”

“Oh, didn't you hear?” Adam came fully into the room. He glanced up at the screen, where the streaming footage from the bug was showing Eggsy absorbed in some shoot ‘em up computer game as he had been for the last three hours, and then back at Harry. Harry looked back and refused to flinch: keeping one’s eye on one’s active case was entirely normal. Adam smiled slightly and went on, “Young madam has given Casanova the old heave-ho. Time for all good men to come to the aid, et cetera.”

“Ah. Is he surprised? She sounded like she had too much about her to put up with him for long.”

“He's very surprised,” Adam said. “He's realised he loves her desperately and has convinced himself he was mere moments from a proposal.”

“Of course he has,” Harry said. He put the old file away in his desk drawer and rose. “Well, as long as it's all in a good cause.”

“Good of you to tear yourself away, old chap,” Adam said, and Harry gave him a flat look, checking the screen once last time as he pressed the button that turned it back to an oil painting. Eggsy was still playing his game, and in fact was possibly turning to stone from the arse up.

“I'm sure nothing interesting will happen while I'm gone.”

***

James was in the most tragic of moods, uncharacteristically refusing to be jollied along even after he'd been stood drinks from every man at the table and Billy had come up with the phone number of a lovely and accomplished young woman who'd just moved into the village where he lived. 

“You just don't understand,” he said, tracing sad patterns on the scarred wooden table. “She was wonderful. Spectacular.”

“There, there,” Alastair said vaguely; he was on his phone under the table. 

Harry rolled his eyes and turned over a page of the paper. 

“I saw that,” James said to him. “You can bugger off if you're not going to be decent.”

“There's nothing indecent about pointing out that nothing seems to have become the woman like her dumping you,” Harry said, his never very extensive patience for coddling worn to the last nerve. “You were dithering over her three days ago and now she's the lost love of your life.”

“She _could have been_ ,” James said and Adam gave him an approving pat on the shoulder at the sign of life. “One can never give a partner a fair chance, what with all this. They can never really _know_ you.”

He gave a general wave apparently meant to encompass Kingsman in its entirety. 

“I'm married,” Adam said, offended. 

“Different generation,” James said glumly. “I bet Dolly never enquired after your work at all, did she? Just met you at the door with a stiffener, and supper on the table, and then you were married and you could tell all.”

Harry and Billy shared a glance; a description more unlike Adam’s extremely formidable wife could hardly be imagined. If anything, the older generation had meant the wrong spouse had ended up with the job. Dorothy would have been much more suited to Kingsman than Adam, with his friendly, mildly sociopathic laziness. 

“Then go back to trying to convince one of the staff to go out with you,” Harry said. “There must be somebody who hasn't heard about the live eels yet.”

“Or go and get a job in a bank,” Billy said. “The suits are worse, and nobody would like you, but the hours are better.”

“He'd miss the firearms,” Alastair said.

“A firearm doesn't keep a man warm at night,” Adam said, looking smugly sorry for them all with their bachelor lives.

Harry said, “He can get a hot water bottle.”

“You're a shower of unsympathetic lonely old baggages,” James accused, and put his head on the table. “Who’s getting me another drink?”

***

When he finally escaped the pub he checked his phone and was perturbed to see two phone calls and six texts from Eggsy: as many as he had in a week usually. 

He opened the messaging app with hands rock steady with urgency. The texts had been sent with increasing regularity over the last hour, asking why Harry wasn't answering his phone, Eggsy needed to talk to him; the last was simply a row of exclamation marks and a RING ME NOW.

He turned from the route he'd been on, back to the office, and went for the shuttle, pressing to redial with one hand as he went while with the other he switched his glasses to a channel to Merlin. 

“Hiya,” Eggsy said, subdued. 

“What's happened?” Harry demanded. 

“Er, yeah,” Eggsy said. “I know, innit?”

_Fuck_. 

“He's at home,” Merlin said; Harry could hear rapid keyboard clicking through the sensitive connection of the glasses. “Living room. Mum there, Dean, third party. Unknown man, running facial recognition now.”

“Can you meet tonight?” Harry said into the phone. The familiar sweet rush of adrenaline seemed to make colours a little brighter, sounds a little sharper; he could hear Eggsy's breathing, a shade too fast and unsteady, and he felt he could have quite cheerfully done somebody violence on the back of it. 

“Yeah,” Eggsy said, relieved. 

“Holiday Inn, I'll be about an hour and a half,” Harry said crisply. 

“I don't know about that,” Eggsy said. 

“Somewhere else?” Harry said. This was going to take a bloody long time if he had to play a guessing game and he was itching to see Eggsy - to get Eggsy's news, but also just for Eggsy himself, to reassure him out of that terrible tense tone of voice.

“Go and get him,” Merlin said abruptly. “I’ll have a cab ready at the shop.”

Harry didn't question it. “I'll pick you up,” he said. “About the same time, all right? I'll text you when I'm close.”

“Yeah, good, yeah,” Eggsy said. “See you.”

“Let me know if there's - anything,” Harry said. “We’re watching, yes? It's all right.”

“Yeah, all right,” Eggsy said. 

And hung up.

Harry said, “Merlin?”

“Still searching on the wildcard,” Merlin said tautly. “French, though, Harry. I'll route the last couple of hours of the house footage through to the shuttle.”

“Escalation,” Harry said. “ _Shit_. You think they've some idea they're under surveillance? Why didn't he want me to meet him in the usual?”

“I'm not sure. He made a sort of steering wheel motion, it seemed worth a try.”

“Good,” Harry said. He sped up.

***

The shuttle seemed to take ages, but maybe it was just the close attention with which Harry watched the footage back that made the time draw out.

Baker had brought the man in just before dinner time, sending his wife into a flap. Eggsy appeared moments later from the direction of his bedroom, looking wary, and Harry appreciated in an absent way how he unobtrusively brought Baker and his guest around, choreographing the conversation so the bug camera got a perfect face-on view of the wildcard.

“This is Jean,” Baker said, mangling the French pronunciation in the way of a man who demanded off-menu egg and chips from restaurants on the Costa del Sol. “He's gonna be staying for a while.”

“Staying where?” Eggsy said sulkily, looking round the messy living room. 

“Eggsy!” Michelle said, with an anxious look at her husband. “Of course we’ll make room for Dean’s friend.”

“More the merrier, innit, babe,” Dean said, and leered: the newcomer gave Michelle a brief up and down look that made Eggsy cross the room and put his arm round his mother protectively. 

“It’s all right,” she said, quietly; Harry had to read it from her lips rather than hear it. “Get another tray ready for me, would you, love?”

Eggsy gave Baker a look of flat glinting hatred but he moved away and shuffled a tray together to serve the extra meal, which explained a lot about Eggsy's table manners. 

“I'm going for a piss,” he announced when he was finished, and disappeared briefly. Harry checked the timestamp: it matched the first of the calls and texts he'd got from Eggsy. 

On the screen Michelle was fluttering, coaxing a fourth dinner out of what she'd made for three. At the same time she was trying to engage the wildcard in fumbling conversation about his journey; he gave dismissive answers and after a minute Baker offered him a cigarette (“Oh -” Michelle said, gaze fixing longingly on the packet, and ‘Jean’ looked at the curve of her belly and drew Baker to the other side of the small flat, where they smoked in moody Gallic silence). 

When Eggsy came back, he looked wild with nerves, at least to Harry's eye, but Michelle seemed to take it as anger, hugged him and whispered a plea into his ear that Eggsy accepted, alongside the tray with his supper, with a flinty look.

“What you doing here, then?” Eggsy said, when they were all sitting and shovelling food into their mouths. Harry winced at the aggression in his tone but neither Michelle or Baker turned a hair, so they were obviously used to it. 

Jean glanced at Dean, and said, “Work.” Harry’s ear for French accents wasn’t perfect, but he didn’t sound Parisian; eastern, perhaps, near the German border.

“Dean don’t even work though,” Eggsy snapped and Harry frowned reflexively on his behalf. Some subtlety might have been nice, but Eggsy seemed badly rattled: Jean was looking at him, and while the full impact of his expression was hidden to the camera, whatever Eggsy saw made him hunch over his dinner and stab at his plate.

“Eggsy!” Michelle said, again, embarrassed. 

She gave Baker’s knee a pat; he gave her a look as disinterested as his habitual snarl seemed able to manage and said to his guest, “I thought we’d go down the pub, later. Get some of the boys in to say hello.”

Eggsy glanced at him, glanced in the direction of the bug. He chewed his lip for a moment and then said, “Can I come? I'll gizza boys a text.” He had the phone out already, but Harry knew it wasn't the boys he was texting. It felt deeply unpleasant, watching past-Eggsy's distress, knowing Eggsy had been reaching out to him for help that at that moment at least Harry hadn't given.

“No, you fucking can't,” Baker snapped.

“A’ight, I was just asking,” Eggsy said, his defensiveness a shade too quick to be real. 

“You can stop in with me, love,” Michelle said: she looked rather like she’d welcome the company and Harry felt a further pang of guilt at what he was doing, drawing her son deeper into the mess Dean Baker had already made of her life, an unfair sense of irritation following it. 

“Yeah,” Eggsy said, his gaze flickering back down to the phone. 

“You can clear out that pit you call a bedroom for Jean,” Baker said. “You'll sleep in ‘ere for a bit.”

“What?” Eggsy said, his voice rising. “Mum!” Harry could see a line of tension in him that was his deliberately not looking at the bug, now. Harry found he was getting a headache: he pinched the bridge of his nose and found a bottle of water rolling around under the seat.

“You shut the fuck up,” Baker said, his voice sharper, deeper, rising over Eggsy's. “You're in my fucking house -”

“Fuck off, you're in mine!” Eggsy yelled and Harry felt his own adrenaline rise in sympathy at the crash that followed. 

Eggsy had ducked, but he was splattered with baked beans where the bowl had flown past and hit the wall behind his head. He was pale; Harry zoomed in and could see that he was shaking. Michelle was cringed away, fear painted in well-worn lines on her face. Jean was watching it all with no discernible expression, chewing slowly. 

Harry's hands were in fists: he eased them deliberately, then clenched them again and released into a forced limpness. 

“It's okay, babe, ain't it?” Michelle appealed to her son; she jerked as Baker got up, a feeble thing as if she wanted to run and didn't know where she could go. 

“It's fine, innit, Muggsy,” Baker said, low. He walked over to Eggsy and Harry could see how difficult it was for him not to look up, to keep frozen and hunched and small with the back of his neck vulnerable and bare. Baker took Eggsy's still half-full plate off him, now he'd wasted his own meal, and said, “Clean that up.”

There had been more texts after that, and their phone call, so Eggsy was all right; and Merlin would be picking up anything useful on their new target. Harry left the pause on Eggsy's resigned, bitter profile the rest of the way to the shop, and it stuck in his mind most of the drive to Eggsy's estate, as well.


	9. Chapter 9

The estate was squat looming brown against the grey sky, a pink sunset struggling to make itself known through the drably unrelenting cloud cover. There was a pack of louts hanging around at the base of one of the stairwells. Harry trained his glasses on them and the face recognition system picked them out one by one as Baker’s men. They gave his car a cursory glance and went back to their cigarettes and cans of lager.

Harry reached for his phone and texted Eggsy one word: _downstairs_. He found he was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel after that and placed his hands in his lap, still. 

His attention was caught, relievingly, by a flurry of activity: Eggsy appeared at the top of the stairs and Harry saw a smile of relief when he saw the car. It didn't last. Eggsy noticed the pack next and his slightly crumpled posture turned combative, too late for the posturing not to be obvious.

Eggsy tried to shoulder his way through the men and Harry watched with concern as he was accosted by Petersen; Baker’s second, or as Kingsman suspected fall guy, a skinny unprepossessing specimen known as Rottweiler in the gang. He lived up to the nickname in the way he snapped and snarled after Eggsy, hostility in every line of both of them. It was odd seeing Eggsy like this, a world away from his awkward sweetness with Harry now and even from his early sullen disinterest; it threw into sharp vividness the extent of Eggsy's trust, which Harry hadn't been considering particularly deep. He'd been working from the wrong standard. His hand crept towards the door handle.

“Don’t even think about it, Galahad, we can't afford to have them wondering about Eggsy's new friend,” Merlin warned and Harry startled: he’d forgotten Merlin was there.

“Awfully sorry,” he said politely. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

He took his glasses off and laid them carefully in the glove box. He could just about hear Merlin’s raised voice as he closed them in.

He got out of the car. Part of him wished for a nice, straightforward brawl, where everyone's intentions and plans were perfectly clear - to finish off their opponent and then finish off their pint - and a man need rely on nothing but his own wits and his umbrella. 

But that was unhelpful. He watched one or two of the men on the fringes notice him, start to nudge and whisper, saw Eggsy throw him a look about half and half beseeching and alarmed.

Well, he was always at his best when thinking on his feet. He straightened his jacket out and walked forward. 

There was a trick, one of the very first newly-named knights were taught. The perfect bespoke suits, the slightly old-fashioned umbrella, the automatic way of carrying oneself one developed when confident of being able to defend against deadly force: they all added up to a gentleman who cut a fine figure on any street he chose to walk down. 

That was Kingsman. But Kingsman was also, of course, in the business of the secret, the private, and very occasionally the distasteful, and it sometimes behoved one to be unobtrusive: for anyone who asked to remember only, vaguely, ‘oh yes, now I come to think of it, there was a chap in a nice suit’.

It didn’t take much. By and large people liked to be able to look others over, categorise them, dismiss them, and return to the pleasant little narrative inside their heads of a comfortable world and a happy ending and a fish supper on Fridays. Harry rounded his shoulders, made his steps smaller, cast his gaze down. The effect was boring, commonplace, a little diffident about the space he took up in the world, and even as he stepped up the edges of the pack he could feel their attention flowing off him like water, back to their own preoccupations.

“Eggsy?” he said, keeping his voice soft. 

“Yeah,” Eggsy said, then to Petersen, “just fuck off, yeah, I ain't doing nothing.” 

Petersen spat on the ground after him - what a charmer - but Eggsy had already eeled out of the pack. He grabbed Harry's sleeve and Harry allowed himself to be led away and back to the car. 

“All right?” he said, glancing over at Eggsy as he turned the ignition key. 

“Just drive,” Eggsy said, looking back over Harry's shoulder. 

“Where?”

“Just fucking _go_!”

Harry just fucking went.

***

Harry drove randomly for several minutes, checking on Eggsy occasionally and then more often, as he seemed to collapse in slow motion, hunching and his breath coming fast. 

He pulled in on a featureless residential street, parking up behind a white van, and almost as soon he reached over and put his hand on the back of Eggsy's neck, resting his palm heavily and encouraging Eggsy to bend over. “Breathe in,” he said. “Push up against my hand. Good. Breathe out.”

Eggsy's breathing evened out after a couple of minutes. He straightened up and scrubbed his hand over his face, dislodging his cap. Harry let his touch soften, offer to fall away; Eggsy slid him a look, made a tiny lean towards him, and Harry left his hand where it was. 

“He's with my mum,” Eggsy said, despairing. “Dragged my bloody mum into it.”

“We’re doing our best to make sure your mother isn't harmed,” Harry said. 

“What if your best ain't good enough?” Eggsy flung back; his fists clenched on his thighs. “Don't matter, anyway. I got no better ideas, have I? Got to trust you now.”

“You can,” Harry said, making his voice low and persuasive. “Tell me about your houseguest, Eggsy.”

“I don't _like_ him,” Eggsy said, with surprising passion. “You saw him, yeah? I tried to put him in the way of the bug.”

“You did very well,” Harry assured him. “My colleagues are running face recognition searches now.”

“It won't show you the way he looks at people,” Eggsy said. There was a hunted, scared note in his voice, naked and unfamiliar. “Like dead inside. His eyes are like rocks.”

That wasn't terribly unusual for the kind of man Harry suspected their French friend was, but he wasn't going to tell Eggsy that. “He won't hurt your mother,” he said. “There's nothing in that for him, Eggsy.”

“But he'd hurt me,” Eggsy said. He looked at Harry with wide eyes and a pale, set face. “Wouldn't he? My stepdad wouldn't stop him. My mum couldn't. If I was in his way.”

“Yes,” Harry said. “He probably would.”

“If he knew I was here, telling you this.”

“It's very likely,” Harry said, holding Eggsy's gaze. 

“I done a lot for you,” Eggsy said, aggressively. “The bug and shit. Told you stuff.”

“You have,” Harry said. “Are you waiting for me to offer you an out? I'm not going to. But if you want out, we’ll let you go with gratitude. And do our best to protect you and your mother, still. As you say, you've already done a lot.”

Eggsy stared out of the window at the row of terraces. They were yellow brick and new, shiny black painted front doors and PVC windows with clean net curtains and glowing light behind. This was always a difficult moment - the doubt, the dramatic exit - but as he'd said, it was Eggsy's choice. Eventually Eggsy said, “You got anything to eat?”

“I might have a Polo mint,” Harry said. “We’ll find somewhere.”

He took them away, through Brixton and up into the suburban pleasantries beyond Clapham Junction: unlikely Baker had people there, unless he was selling in the area. But they probably had their own dealers, who dressed in wide pinstripe and drank white wine. 

Without Harry looking at him, Eggsy had time to ponder. As they sped along the northern edge of the Common he said, “If he'd hurt me. He'd hurt other people, wouldn't he? He probably has already. Loads.”

“Almost certainly,” Harry agreed. 

“He's here to hurt more,” Eggsy said, conclusion drawn. He sounded - not unhappy, exactly. More the resigned tones of someone much older, looking the world square in the face and finding it exactly as bloody disappointing as expected. “That's why my stepdad brought him here.”

“Yes,” Harry said. 

Eggsy said, “I think I want a curry.”

***

“Jean Redin. He makes bombs,” Asher said, sharp and black-clad, over-tired and over-wired. “He was arrested with the forebear of Le Rouge a few times, went to prison once, but only on affray, he was out in a year. They set someone else up to take the incendiaries charge. He's still inside.”

“They think highly of Baker then,” James said, studying a still of the man from Eggsy's bug, turned slightly to the right, displaying very faint burn scarring on his cheek. Harry didn't know what he'd been looking at but the flat affect Eggsy had mentioned was hinted at in the cold brown eyes and motionless features. “Sending him someone so valuable.”

“Or they don't mind sacrificing him and his colleagues for the chance to destabilise Europe with a little light domestic terrorism,” Stephens said. “White supremacy groups take the credit, no concern that Islamist groups will be blamed, and Le Rouge and their expert go back to France and plan their next bit of fun.”

“Plans to bomb are a clear escalation from anything they've done before,” Harry said crisply. “There will be something else first, I should think. For him to see up close how they work before he takes the risk.”

“If so they're keeping it tight at home,” Merlin said. “Monsieur Redin is not a chatterer.”

“Can Eggsy get closer? Take an interest?” Asher asked Harry. 

“He doesn't like Redin.”

“Hardly what I asked,” she said impatiently. 

“He's very concerned for his mother, with Redin in the house,” Harry said. He could feel Merlin’s gaze on him, pensive, but he didn't turn to look. “He's barely left her side.”

Asher sighed, eyeing Harry as if he were being unhelpful. “Can we arrange to have her out of the way for a few days?” 

“She's pregnant, isn't she?” Stephens said. “Have her GP pop her in hospital. We can manage that easily.”

“So you'd like to put an expectant mother in fear for her unborn child in the service of this operation,” James said flatly: he was exuberantly tender-hearted over pregnant women, likely due to being dewy-eyed over the idea of lots of noisy brats of his own running round, although there was general agreement in the organisation that if James had a baby he would almost certainly forget it in the pub. Harry wasn't bothered about ladies in an interesting condition, particularly, but on this occasion he was thinking more about Eggsy, and his upset and worry if he thought something might be wrong with his mother or the baby.

“I'm not suggesting anything dramatic,” Stephens said piously. “A few days’ bedrest is hardly unusual.”

“You're very trusting of Eggsy's abilities all of a sudden,” Harry said. 

“Just wanting his focus on the job,” Stephens snapped. “He's been useful so far, but if he's going to need managing to stay that way…”

“Galahad,” Merlin said, low but meaningful, and Harry sat back slowly in his seat. 

“Eggsy has been useful,” Asher said. “That dossier he gave you the first night, on Baker’s gang, has been very informative. I passed some of the information on to my drugs colleagues, without naming the source, of course, and they've been able to make some arrests higher up the supply chain.”

“Eggsy hasn't mentioned that.”

Asher shrugged. “There's no real reason he should know.”

“There’s no reason for him to know the real reason his mother is being admitted, either,” Stephens said. “Keep his mind on the job. I trust you can keep to that, Agent Galahad.”

“Naturally,” Harry said.

***

Harry said, “Your mother is going to be admitted to hospital tomorrow.”

“What the fuck?” Eggsy said, voice rising. He sat bolt upright from his awkward position - head in Harry's lap while Harry rested his hand cautiously on his shoulder and suffered the indignity of pretending to throw his head back in paroxysms of pleasure, Eggsy having refused to go very far from home this evening - and reached for the car door as if he were indeed going to run straight home this moment.

“There’s nothing wrong,” Harry said hastily. “We thought it might be - helpful for her to be out of the house for a bit.”

“You can’t do that,” Eggsy said accusingly. “What’s she gonna think, baby ain’t well? You can’t even fucking do that, you get to her quack or what?”

“Yes,” Harry said plainly. “Eggsy. Eggsy, calm down. Come on, don’t tell me you’re not keen on the idea of having your mother somewhere safe for a couple of days. She’ll be very well looked after, and nobody is going to suggest there’s anything really wrong, just that some observation and bed rest might be beneficial.”

“Jesus,” Eggsy said. He slumped back into the car seat and Harry leaned over him and got a bottle of water from the glovebox, handed it to him. Eggsy snatched it off him and glared; it was probably unfortunately fitting for their previous playacted activities, if anyone was keeping an eye on them. “Yeah, all right, I don’t like her near him, he’s fucking - he ain’t _right_. You promise she’s not going to be scared? Don’t let them scare her, Harry.”

“She’s going to be well looked after,” Harry said gently. “She’s what, five months along?”

“Yeah, nearly,” Eggsy said. “They told her she can find out if it’s a boy or a girl soon, but she don’t want to know.” He fiddled with the screwtop of the water bottle, looked over at Harry levelly, as if he was deciding something, and then he said, “Do you want to see a picture?”

“I’d love to,” Harry lied, and indeed as expected the sonogram Eggsy showed him on the small screen of his iPhone was totally indistinguishable from every other sonogram picture in existence, but the soft look on Eggsy’s face was extraordinary: he really was going to make an excellent brother. He said, “Do you have a preference?”

“I dunno,” Eggsy said. He sighed and put the phone away again, and Harry was sorry for whatever he’d said to wipe away Eggsy’s enthusiasm already. “It ain’t easy for anyone, is it? If it’s a girl, I know what the lads round me are like, no peace. And if it’s a boy… Dean wants a boy. A son. Have me out on my arse, probably.”

“Is that why your mother doesn’t want to find out?” Harry said, cautiously, feeling as if the conversation were a balmy meadow where the grass had suddenly turned out to be upright sharpened razor blades.

“Maybe,” Eggsy said. “We don’t talk about him, really. He’d have wanted me out next week, if mum hadn’t got pregnant. He don’t fucking want to look after her, does he.”

“What’s next week?” Harry asked, although even as he said it a memory was drifting up. He could visualise it as easily as he’d flipped through the pages of the briefing, back at the very start of the operation. “You’re eighteen. Could get a flat of your own?”

Eggsy looked startled, looked a little bashful, a pink touch on his cheeks as if he were pleased Harry knew. “Yeah, maybe. Council don’t really care about young lads, but if Dean kicked me out I might get something. B&B, probably.”

“Are you doing anything for your birthday?” Harry ventured, not quite sure whether it would make Eggsy prickly. It seemed - personal.

“Shouldn’t think so,” Eggsy said. He was trying to sound off-hand, and probably would have been furious to know the thump of pain that underscored his tone like a bass line. “Definitely not with Mum in hospital. The boys’ll get me a pint. Maybe I’ll nick a cake.”

Harry studied him for a moment, and then, impulsively, and knowing himself for a bloody great idiot even the split second before he committed, he took off his watch and held it out. “Here. Call it an early birthday present.”

“Don’t be stupid, I’m not having your watch,” Eggsy said automatically, but he was already reaching for it, face bright with greed and gratitude, yes, but also just simple surprised pleasure at the gift.

“Clearly, you are,” Harry said, amused, watching Eggsy strap it on, fastening it several holes tighter around his smaller wrists: his hands were strangely graceful and Harry had a sudden vivid memory of one of those early meetings, Eggsy bounding off the railway bridge, nimble and quick.

He looked up at Harry, face open and boyish. “Does it do any James Bond shit?”

“It might do,” Harry said slyly. “Let me know when you’ve figured it out. And for Christ’s sake don’t let anyone bloody rob it.”


	10. Chapter 10

Merlin had his head in his hands. Harry patted him on the shoulder and flourished a bag of wretchedly expensive Borough Market millionaire shortbread in front of him.

“Remind me what that model does,” Merlin said. He took the bag, found a plate and fork and decanted his cake. Harry winced as he stabbed a vindictive crack into the chocolate layer, grim eyes fixed on Harry’s face.

“Only the stun spray,” Harry said. “Not even amnesia, much less anything lethal.”

“You’re a _menace_ ,” Merlin said. “What the heck were you thinking?”

“It's his eighteenth birthday, we’re taking his mother away, and in her absence he's risking his life trying to get closer to whatever Baker and Redin are planning next,” Harry said, striving to sound reasonable and not defensive. 

Merlin narrowed his eyes. “When you put in a req for a new one, can you please just say you lost it? What Arthur would say if he heard about this...”

“No reason he should,” Harry said. “How's your cake?”

“There's not enough shortbread in the world,” Merlin said. “If he does find out I'm telling him I knew nothing of it.”

“He won't,” Harry said. “I am a professional spy.”

“You're an idiot,” Merlin said, and jabbed Harry with his fork when Harry reached over to appropriate a crumbled corner of shortbread and caramel.

“And it's a help for the sugar-daddy cover,” Harry added. “Presents from the lovelorn punter.”

“The cover wouldn't need shoring up if it weren't for the last stunt,” Merlin said. “Getting in there like that and showing them your face. I'm serious, Harry, don't scoff at me. You're getting too close to this.”

“He trusts me,” Harry said, careful to keep any heat out of his voice. “That's the bloody point.”

“My eyes are everywhere,” Merlin said. He stared Harry out and plunged his fork into the cake until it clinked against the plate. “I know everything. Don't mess about, Harry.”

“You're worrying too much. It's all fine,” Harry said irritably. He caught something over Merlin’s shoulder and, reprieve in sight, nodded his gaze over to the pub door, which James was solicitously holding open for the infamous Savannah. “Oh, look. Love’s young dream.”

Merlin turned round and Harry took the opportunity to steal that bit of shortbread he'd had his eye on. “Unbelievable,” Merlin said. He waved at the pair and Savannah came over, trailed by a meaningfully glaring James. “And I saw that, you gannet. I thought Sav had more sense.”

“She's letting him buy her a drink, not marrying him,” Harry pointed out. 

“What are you doing here?” James demanded. 

“Having a _drink_ ,” Merlin said. “What are you doing here, more like. Are you drinking? It's the middle of the working day,” he added to Savannah. 

She gave him a flat look. “I was here until half one in the morning last Friday sorting Tristan’s incendiary stilettos, don't bloody talk to me about working hours.”

“What's Tristan going to do with incendiary -” James started and Savannah turned to him with a gentle pat on the chest and a smile. 

“Mine’s a Rioja, James, do you mind? And some cheese and onion crisps would be nice.”

“And mine’s a Guinness,” Harry said cheerfully, collecting up his and Merlin’s empties. “I'll come to the bar with you.”

“This isn't my idea of a nice drink and getting to know somebody,” James complained, following him to the bar. “Could the pair of you do me a favour and piss off?”

“She's just asked you for cheese and onion crisps,” Harry said. “A clearer declaration of romantic disinterest I cannot imagine. How did you get her to agree to go out with you?”

“She offered,” James said with dignity. “I was down asking Gwen for some advice about Charlotte.”

Harry raised an eyebrow at him. “And her advice was to start taking out her staff, was it?”

“No,” James said. “Although she did come out with the old fish in the sea line, which is as good as.”

“I’m not sure it is,” Harry said, gesturing Alan the barman to James when he came to take their order.

James gave it, and then waited for Alan to move away and start pulling Merlin’s pale ale before he stepped closer and lowered his voice, enough to blend skillfully with the ambient chatter of the pub without being noticeable. “Gwen told me the wife took her hospital admission well enough.”

“I know,” Harry said, with matching discretion. “The boy texted me to say as much.”

“Well, he won’t have told you that while he was packing up some things for his mum, Baker told her he probably wouldn’t be able to come and see her because he’s going to be _busy_ ,” James said. “She showed some sign of life, apparently, God love her. Said, busy with what, I’ve got to go to hospital with your baby kicking seven bells out of me, and he said, can’t be that much wrong then and I’ve got some stuff to get done end of the week.”

“End of the week,” Harry said. He picked up his and Merlin’s drinks. “Thanks, James. We’ll leave you to it. Don’t forget her crisps, will you?”

***

As it turned out, he didn't have to prod Eggsy to find out what was going on. Eggsy blew into the hotel room the following evening highly strung with excitement, pride and anxiety mixing in his bright eyes. 

“I know what they're planning,” he blurted, before he'd so much as sat down. “And it's fucking awful, but that don't matter, ‘cause you can stop it, yeah? You can _get_ them. Fucking finally. Fuckers.”

Harry felt the first stirrings of alarm. He stood and guided Eggsy into a chair with a gentle, calming hand on his arm. “Can you start at the beginning for me? Tell me exactly what you know.”

He picked his glasses up off the table, flicking them on and into recording mode with a quick tap on the frame. Eggsy gave him an odd look, but he crashed down into the chair, winding himself up into a ball with his arms wrapped round his knees for a moment before he moved again, eventually settling leant forward on the table with his ankles wrapped round the chair legs, perched yet still restless. 

“They've picked out this bloke, they're going to get him alone and beat shit out of him,” Eggsy said. “He runs - I dunno his name, he runs the Polish community centre in Hammersmith - Czerniak or something, Dean can hardly speak fucking English.”

“What for?” Harry said. 

“I dunno,” Eggsy said restlessly. “Does it matter? Not nothing, I don’t think, just ‘cause he’s there. Send a message. Let them know they should be scared.”

“Them? The Polish community?”

“Yeah, you know,” Eggsy said. “They’re all, our jobs, our flats. Like Dean even fucking ever thinks about getting an actual job. His mate Tony dropped another load of tellies round last night. He’s selling them fifty quid a go.”

Well, that answered one question, although hardly one of any importance. Harry made a mental note for later - handling stolen goods was at least a potentially useful pretext for bringing Baker in if necessary - and asked, “Are you absolutely sure about this?” Harry asked, although Eggsy's every move blazed his eager honesty. It was almost painful to see his straightforward trust that he had put this in Harry's hands and Harry would now solve it, provide the safety and easy control of a situation that had so far evaded Eggsy's young life. “Did you overhear them?”

Eggsy hesitated. “Yeah. Yeah, they was talking about it and I heard. Look, it's solid, yeah? You can just - arrest them or something, yeah? He don’t even have to know there was anything.”

_Shit_. Harry evaded that question: he could feel the confrontation coming, like driving under fiercely black cloud and seeing the first fat drops of rain land on the windscreen, and he found he didn’t want it at all, the inevitability of it: he could see the shape of it, how badly Eggsy would take it, and it made him have to think about breathing calmly and deeply.

“Where and when is this scheduled to take place?” he asked carefully. “Have they got that far?”

“The Premier Inn on King’s Road,” Eggsy answered readily. “Friday night. Late on. Ten maybe.”

“A hotel?” Harry checked. “You’re sure? Not at his own home, or this community centre?”

“I don’t know, do I,” Eggsy said, far too defensive for the relative innocuousness of the question. “They don't want no hassle, just a jump on the poor bastard, it's gonna be the hotel. I’m just telling you, yeah, I ain’t explaining them to you.”

“No, all right,” Harry said. Eggsy was radiating prickly irritation but there was something of the frightened animal about his rounded shoulders and Harry reached impulsively across the table to lay his hand supportively over Eggsy’s. Eggsy looked up at him, eyes glittering, and a little of the crackling anger seemed to bleed away from him; made the atmosphere dangerous instead. Harry said, “That’s plenty of information. Thank you.”

Eggsy narrowed his eyes at Harry and Harry kept his expression composed. He couldn’t quite damn Eggsy for his cleverness, and the sort of low cunning that went with it; that was why he was useful to them, after all. But just at that moment he would have done quite a lot for the kind of lumpen disinterested teenager who never looked below anything that was said to them, if they bothered to hear it at all.

Eggsy said slowly, “That ain’t saying you’re going to do anything about it, is it?”

Harry hesitated and Eggsy caught the weakness, snatched away from Harry’s touch and bristled with righteous anger, and more: confusion, hurt; betrayal falling into the well-worn grooves in Eggsy’s soul for it. But this time from Harry.

“Eggsy -” he started, and knew immediately he’d made a mistake. Too pacifying, too soft: Eggsy was in no mood to accept kindness, even the rather rough kindness that was all Harry had to offer.

“Well, what?” Eggsy demanded. He grabbed his cap off the back of his chair and crammed it onto his head, movements rictus-sharp, as if he were infected and sore throughout his body. “Go on, fucking tell me what you’re gonna do about it. Fucking _stop this_ , he’s just some bloke! What’s the fucking point of you otherwise?”

Even as he asked it, Harry could see him drawing his own conclusions. Eggsy had taken their vague explanation of who Harry was at enough face value to be able to trust him, but Harry could all but see Eggsy’s clever mind reviewing, reconsidering, dropping Harry in a box with the police, and all the other authorities who hadn’t even let Eggsy down; he’d have had to trust them in the first place for that.

“I’ll do what I can,” Harry said quietly. “Eggsy, you must be able to see that there is more at stake here than the health of one man, however undeserving. If your stepfather and his associates are tipped off now that they’re under close surveillance - there’s a great deal at risk. Even yourself -” 

But as soon as he said it he knew that was a mistake; Eggsy was soft-hearted enough that he would be prepared to disregard that. Had Harry ever been like that? He had a vague sense that the boy he’d been when he’d joined Kingsman, not so much older than Eggsy was now, might well have done the arithmetic and come out with much Eggsy’s answer, not the experienced, tired, cynical pragmatism of now.

“You can’t do this,” Eggsy said, and his genuine bewilderment and disappointment were far more difficult to bear than his anger had been. “Harry, mate, come on. Don’t make - don’t let them do this.”

“We’ll do what we can,” Harry said steadily. “But we may need to allow this to go ahead, Eggsy. I’m sorry.”

“What if I don’t?” Eggsy flung back. “I could warn him. Tell him to watch himself. I told you cos I thought you’d fucking - sort it. You’d _do_ something, Harry.”

“Then I’d need to consider you a live threat to an ongoing intelligence operation and take you into custody,” Harry said. It was defeating, terrible: he couldn’t bear it, and he heard the way his voice and bearing went in response, haughty and proper and appalling, almost calculated to turn Eggsy into his hectic, furious worst self, the two of them rubbing up against one another like oil on a smouldering angry fire. 

“You wouldn’t,” Eggsy said, but his resigned tone said very well that he thought Harry would. Harry had a moment of fury with himself for having ever turned the glasses on: recording, probably under simultaneous surveillance at Merlin’s end, inescapable. 

He made himself meet Eggsy’s eyes calmly. He’d rather enjoyed being a disappointment at school; it was satisfying to live down to Arthur’s more disgraceful expectations; letting down Eggsy was so spectacularly unpleasant he couldn’t quite accept it, the way Eggsy was looking at him, feet of definite clay and sunk so very deep and low. 

“If you hear anything else,” he said and was interrupted by Eggsy’s bark of unhumorous laughter.

“Oh, yeah,” Eggsy said, and his eyes said he was disgusted with himself for having expected anything more, for having allowed himself to think anything else of Harry but that he would use Eggsy however he desired if he could and throw him away when he couldn’t, just as Harry Morgan had wanted to use his body. “Yeah, right. I’ll call you.”

It sounded like _fuck you_ , extremely clearly. Harry rose automatically as Eggsy walked out, back ramrod straight under his garish hoody in a vision of who he’d be if he ever fulfilled those military dreams, and then sat slowly back down. The glasses were still streaming: he didn’t put his head in his hands.

***

It was drizzling. Harry was sitting on a bench just inside the small park opposite the entrance to the Premier Inn, a building so heartfeltly ugly it was almost impressive. His umbrella was up, keeping most of him dry, as water beaded on his polished shoes and the hems of his navy trousers turned heavy with damp. 

James was prattling on beside him. Things were going well with Savannah, who last night had permitted James to take her out for dinner. James was happy, in a pie-eyed simple sort of way: Harry was minded to find it personally offensive.

“That’s not very nice,” James said, hurt, when Harry said as much. “I’m just telling you. I’d have thought you might try to be a bit pleased for me. What time did the boy say? It’s getting late. Maybe he did warn the chap. Maybe they got lost.”

“I haven’t heard from Eggsy,” Harry said shortly. Not a thing, and his texts were stubbornly refusing to even get the little ‘read’ message underneath them. The bug was still operational, of course, but he was feeling rather odd about checking it himself; Gwen hadn’t reported anything of note, although Baker was feeling more confident at home with Michelle Baker still safely stowed away in her hospital bed - Harry had sent flowers, in the guise of a small charity project to cheer up ladies on the maternity ward - and there had been a couple of conversations that Gwen, already in the know, thought referred obliquely to tonight’s little adventure being still on.

Although that was before it had turned out such a dreary day. Perhaps James was right. It was very much an evening for slouching around the pub, hardly an activity Baker needed encouragement to indulge in at the best of times. 

“Could the weather have put a dampener on it?” James said. Harry looked at him reproachfully; James was smiling to himself at the wretched little pun. “Eggsy never did tell you how they were planning to get him here, did he?”

“No,” Harry said. He’d watched the footage back several times now, trying to pinpoint just where the conversation had gone so bloody badly, if there was anything he could have done, should have said differently. There hadn’t been any nice easy answers for him and the exercise had made him bad-temperedly aware that not only had he comprehensively failed Eggsy on the day, definitely from Eggsy’s rather naive point of view, he’d crapped out on the basics of spycraft as well: the intelligence Eggsy had provided, while Harry was still confident in its basic reliability, had been thin in the extreme.

“Well, we’re already damp,” James said philosophically. “What’s another half an hour? And then perhaps we could go to that rather insalubrious green little pub down the road ourselves, what do you say? We can have a pie, and I can tell you some of Savannah’s rather interesting thoughts on how the research teams are organised.”

“Your girlfriend’s never planning insurrection? Merlin won’t bear the betrayal.” It was surprisingly cheering to be able to enmesh himself in the comforting and only occasionally fatal goings-on of Kingsman politics. There were two figures approaching down the road, dimming in and out of the pools of the streetlamp, swaying together companionably. Harry touched his glasses to zoom in, out of habit.

“She’s not quite said, but I rather gathered it might be his idea. She muttered something dark about Arthur’s intransigence that was distinctively Scottish.”

“Lancelot,” Harry said. His heart was sinking, sinking, joining his shoes in their sad wet little tragedy. James snapped to at the use of his codename, all playfulness and amiable idiocy blanked as if James himself had never been. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, and pulled them from an inside pocket and slipped them on.

“Oh,” James said, examining the situation. “Oh dear.” He glanced at Harry and ventured, “Czerniak’s not quite the nice upstanding gent our research suggested, then. If his hobby is picking up teenaged street prostitutes.”

“Eggsy didn't tell me this was how they were getting him here,” Harry said grimly. 

James said, “What would you have done differently if he had?”

His gaze studied thoughtfully into the side of Harry's head. 

“It doesn't matter,” Harry said. He touched the comms open on his glasses and Merlin made an interrogative, faintly apologetic sound on the other end. “We carry on as planned.”


	11. Chapter 11

Eggsy looked around as he and Czerniak approached the shabby, soulless lobby of the hotel. Harry and James kept still and quiet: any frenzied activity just at the point of being noticed was always more noticeable than simple carrying on as before. Eggsy's gaze passed disinterestedly over them; he looked back at Czerniak and gave a small, uncheerful smile. 

There was something interesting in watching Czerniak and Eggsy together, Harry found, if he could consider it research. Part of him was automatically cataloguing the little tweaks to his performance he would make, if called upon again to play the ageing john, either to Eggsy or for another job. Czerniak was more casual than Harry had made Harry Morgan, but the restrained lust was real: he had the distinctive discomfited gait of a man walking with a half-erection. It was all extremely distasteful and Harry couldn't tell if his ire was because of the general lack of elegance and self-control, because it was a young man being paid for his willingness, or merely because it was Eggsy. His mind shied away from the idea of Eggsy treating Czerniak as he'd once treated Harry, all that snail-shell carelessness, offended by the reminder of what Eggsy was pushed to in his daily life.

Czerniak must have checked in earlier. He and Eggsy didn't stop at the desk or make any chitchat, or even from what Harry could see through his zoomed-in vision any eye contact with anybody. They moved smoothly together through the lobby, and Harry watched the lift doors close over Eggsy's dead expression. 

“Harry,” James said, nervously, so Harry had no bloody clue what sort of expression he himself was wearing. 

He made a sharp gesture and James subsided. “As planned,” he said again. 

“Five minutes,” Merlin said. 

He and James waited for five damp, silent minutes, until the squad car rolled up. Two uniformed officers got out, leaving the car to flaunt itself on the double yellows outside, and went in to make desultory, highly visible conversation with the young man slumped behind the reception desk. 

Ten minutes after that, Dean Baker and two of his chosen came along. Redin was with them: he surveyed the street, gaze passing over Harry and James, little more than silhouettes now in the darkness of the park, and took up loitering on the road opposite the hotel entrance. Baker and his colleagues stood for a while, looking in consternation at the squad car, in low agitated conversation, passing glances between the car and the two officers still leaning on the counter and chatting. 

Another minute passed; two; three. 

Baker left, angry, his two lieutenants hurrying behind him. One of them caught up to him, seemed to say something pacifying, was snarled at and fell back again. Redin watched all this with no visible reaction, and then went off in the opposite direction. 

“A good result,” James said. “Eh, Harry? A good result?”

“Oh, yes,” Harry said. His gaze was still fixed on the hotel doors. Eggsy had been up there twenty minutes or so, now. Had he been stalling his customer, waiting for the knock at the door? Or had they meant to catch him in flagrante, defenceless and surprised? Either way, it wouldn't take him much longer to realise that whatever had been meant to happen wasn't going to happen. He said, “A good result. Just as we intended. You can get off, if you like, old chap. I might just hang on a bit and make sure nothing happens.”

“Galahad,” Merlin said over the comms, soft but meaningful. 

“Thank you, gentlemen,” Harry said. He flicked the comms and camera off and stared James down. 

“Well, then. Off I'll pop,” James said, giving Harry the knowing look that always reminded Harry that for all his cheerful bluster, James was as much a killer as any of them. “You're sure you don't want that drink?”

“No,” Harry said. “Thank you.”

James left, and Harry waited.

***

He couldn't make out Eggsy's face well as he came hastily through the lobby. The receptionist looked up at him, went back to his computer. Harry did know Eggsy well enough by now to read his body language: hunched into that particular blend of fear and fury that seemed to come as easy to the boy as waking up in the morning. 

He stepped forward out of the park as Eggsy slammed out of the hotel and called his name, softly. 

Eggsy looked at him from across the road and there was a long moment where Harry wondered if Eggsy would come. 

He did, in the end. There was very little traffic, the evening still rainy and chilly, but Eggsy looked deliberately both ways anyway. Harry wanted to gather him close under his umbrella, damp as he was beneath it anyway; he didn't offer, and tiny beads of water collected on the upturned brim of Eggsy's cap and ran down the unnatural shine of his jacket.

“I wondered why nothing happened. The fuck did you do?” Eggsy asked. Harry drew him closer in towards the wall. Eggsy glanced behind, back to the hotel, and followed. He was hugging himself, arms wrapped round his middle, but perhaps he was just cold; there was a dark smudge under one eye, but perhaps he was just tired; and in bad light. He didn't sound angry anymore. Just emptied out and flat. 

Harry said, “We arranged for the regular police patrol to be here, shortly after you arrived. I wasn't sure whether it would deter your stepfather, but as you say, nothing happened.” His gaze caught on that shadow on Eggsy's face and he said, unplanned, “Did he touch you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Eggsy said. He raised glittering eyes to Harry's face. “Yeah, _that_ happened. What, did you think they was all polite like you? He got his fucking money’s worth.”

“You could have told me this was the plan to get him here -”

“You could have fucking _asked_ ,” Eggsy spat. The anger touching his face was better than the hurt in his bowed shoulders, the way he clutched around himself. “It don't matter. I know none of you think it matters.”

“Eggsy,” Harry said softly. 

“No, piss off! I thought you... I dunno, that don't matter neither.” Eggsy's eyes were wide, dark pools in the night. He dashed rainwater from his cheek impatiently and Harry felt very much as he had the last time he'd been shot, how the localised fire of pain radiated out until the entire body ached.

“It matters a great deal to me what happens to you,” Harry said. It was as if he was speaking to Eggsy down a long tunnel: the words echoed and held, but they barely seemed to reach him. 

“I want my mum back,” Eggsy said. “You can do that. Christ, Dean tonight, he's gonna be… And then I want out, yeah? You can keep your bug up, but I don't want to see you around again. That's finished, get me?”

“Yes,” Harry said: the fairy godfather could do that much before he turned back into a pumpkin. “If that's what you wish. We’re grateful for your assistance.”

“Fucking _whatever_ ,” Eggsy said. Harry couldn't bear the heartbreak in it, watching the mask of surly indifference slide back over Eggsy's face. 

Eggsy searched his face for another moment; Harry wasn't sure what he was looking for, or what he found. Eggsy ducked his head down, against the rain, and hurried away. 

Harry stood for a minute, rain plopping on his umbrella, duty warring with urgent instinct. 

Instinct won. He followed Eggsy down the street, quick, shoes hitting purposeful and loud. He saw Eggsy slow, bracing himself for - something. He expected the hard sell, likely, possibly even threats, although Harry very much hoped Eggsy didn't think that little of Harry. Harry finished writing on his Savile Row business card, fountain pen ink blobbing and careless with his motion and the damp, and Eggsy stopped and turned to face him as Harry drew level with him. 

“Here,” he said, holding it out, hoping to hell Eggsy didn't have quite enough pride to stop him from taking it. “If you can't go home - not just tonight - and not for the operation, Eggsy.”

Eggsy looked at it, then Harry. He didn't speak, but a sharp nod, a snatch of the card with Harry's home address, and he was wheeling away once more. 

Harry reached up and turned on his glasses, opened the channel to Merlin personally, hearing the low hiss that meant he wasn't there, and before Merlin could get online he tapped out a quick message, _he says he’s out_ , and turned it off again. 

He walked the better part of a mile before any black cabs appeared. The shoes were going to be totally fucked. 

***

Harry woke up to a text from HQ inviting him to stay at home for the day and regroup. 

In the morning, he was grateful for Merlin’s solicitousness, and spent the morning drinking cup after cup of tea and watching some snooker he found on the TV recorder, even though he already knew who won. 

By afternoon he was heartily irritated by Merlin’s solicitousness, and put on a suit and went to work. 

Christopher looked at him wide-eyed when he came into the shop. “What?” Harry said snappishly, and made another note to put the man’s continued lack of spy-like poker face into his end-of-year review. 

“Are you here for the meeting, Sir?” Christopher said doubtfully. “I should think they're nearly finished. Detective Inspector Asher has been here for nearly two hours.”

“ _What_ ,” Harry said again, and turning his attention to the staircase he found he was indeed too late. Merlin was looking down on him from the top of the stairs, distant and unrepentant; Asher looked slightly unfocused, as if she was already thinking about whom she'd be crushing in her next meeting; Stephens was skulking greyly behind. James was the only one who had the decency to look guilty at being caught out, and even then only a little. 

“I wasn't informed we were meeting today,” Harry said, automatically at his iciest and most stringently courteous. “My apologies, Detective Inspector. Mr Stephens.”

Asher smiled at him thinly; Stephens looked straight through him. 

“Not at all,” Asher said, descending the stairs. She paused at the bottom, hand out, and Harry shook it. “It was a pleasure working with you, Agent Galahad.”

“Likewise, I'm sure,” Harry said. Stephens slid out behind her without bothering to do even that much, and Harry transferred his attention off the wretched little snake and onto his alleged trusted colleagues. 

“Come through to the dining room,” Merlin said. “We need to talk.”

***

James closed the door of the dining room like he was wishing he were on the outside of it. Harry said, “Would somebody care to explain to me what's going on?” He heard his old housemaster’s clipped tones coming out of his mouth and spared a moment to be mildly appalled at himself. 

“Harry,” Merlin said, hovering somewhere between placating and _do come along_. “Did you really think they'd be all right with just dropping the whole thing?”

“It's not dropping the whole thing to let Eggsy go,” Harry said. “We’ve still got the bug, still got eyes on Redin, still got all the intelligence Eggsy has already provided.”

Merlin was shaking his head. “It's not the same. Not for something moving as fast as this lot, and unpredictable.”

Harry set his mouth. “I can talk to him again.”

“You're too close to this,” Merlin said pitilessly. “I told you. Asher and Stephens have asked for Lancelot to take him over.”

“Et tu, Brute?” Harry snapped, swinging to James, who cowered and bristled together. There was a pugilistic atmosphere simmering in the refined surroundings of the formal dining room: hardly the first argument the Table had witnessed, certainly not since one of the founders repurposed it for Kingsman and probably not before either, so Harry didn't trouble to feel bad about it. 

“There's no need to be like that,” James said, and had the sheer gall to look offended. “If I'm asked to do a job, I shall.”

“And I'll do what? Go home to my knitting?” 

“If you like,” Merlin said. “I could do with a new jumper. Don't be daft, Harry. We can still keep this quiet from Arthur, if you fall in. There's two or three interesting ops bubbling up out of Scry. You can take your pick.”

“He won't be able to run Eggsy,” Harry warned, ignoring James’ splutter behind him. “Eggsy won't wear it.”

“From your report last night, Eggsy won't wear _you_ any more,” Merlin pointed out. “There’s nothing to lose having James try.”

“The only one who stands to lose -” Harry said, and forced himself to cut it off. 

There was a brief silence. James was examining the grain of the table, visibly mortified on behalf of everyone present. Merlin was looking at Harry, cool and a little sympathetic. 

“I promised him we’d leave him alone,” Harry said quietly. 

“Go home, Harry,” Merlin said, and Harry allowed the brief clap on his shoulder. “I'll have the files ready for you next time you're in.”

***

Harry did consider sulking, but being at home felt oppressive. He stopped for coffee twice and breakfast once on the way in, but he did make it in by lunchtime, and swept down to Merlin’s office without making eye contact with anyone in the halls. 

“I’ve come to ask Gwen for a look at those files,” he said, injecting his voice and face with a precisely-judged level of ongoing mistreatedness. 

Merlin swung around in his chair and ran a considering eye over him. “All right,” he said eventually. “You should take a good look at the Zhukov one. Zermatt, the snow’s been excellent there this summer.”

“I'll think about it,” Harry said sniffily, but he recognised the peace offering and he unbent enough to smile. 

Gwen was a bit more difficult. “Merlin’s told me not to say anything more to you about Eggsy or the Baker op,” she said, barely looking away from her screen. 

He didn't bother to dissemble. “Gwen. You've been watching him. You know who he is.”

“He's a good lad,” she said, sighing. “Under everything. He must have stayed at a friend’s the night of the sting. Came back yesterday afternoon.”

“Is he all right?” Harry asked. 

“Baker got in his face a bit,” she said. “Just frustration, I think. His mum’s home, he was happy to see her. James texted him this morning.”

“Has he agreed to meet?” Harry wasn't sure what answer he wanted, and he still wasn't sure when she gave a brief jerk of her head yes. On one hand, Eggsy was certainly safer in their tent, under James’ care if not Harry's. On the other… Harry had promised, and he couldn't bear the thought of what had probably been no more than Eggsy expected, for Harry to turn out a liar on that count as well. And now he couldn't even see Eggsy, couldn't push Eggsy's limits where it would help him and protect them when it wouldn't. 

“I won't interfere,” he said, and then when she gave a sharp laugh, “I _won't_ , Gwen. If he’ll work with James - that's up to him.”

She gave him a long look, and then turned away, flicking through a set of plain folders. The one she handed him was slim, the front covered with scribbles in several hands, in the cryptic half-language the handlers used to describe missions. He tipped it up, heard the tiny memory chip that would unreel the whole thing on glasses or tablet rattling around the bottom. 

“Thanks,” he said. 

She said, “Take care, Harry.”

***

The resort was glorious. Craven killer Zhukov might be, but at least he had taste. Obviously ski-wear was ghastly - even Kingsman-designed ski-wear - but there were compensatory pleasures even if one had to look a complete prat. 

He sat on the vertiginously luxurious balcony of one of the lodges with a hot toddy and looked out over the slopes. He'd got in late and evening was falling, the sky sapphire-dark and shattered with diamond stars, rather fittingly for his current mission. 

There were one or two stubborn learners still flailing little dots on the glacier, otherwise a smooth expanse of snow cover, glowing faintly in the streaming moonlight, hiding the marks of a thousand excitable skiers; there hadn't been new snowfall for some days. He elaborated on this idea of the pristine white powder with so much hidden below it in his head for a while, rather enjoying the maudlin poetics of it, until interrupted by Merlin breaking in over his glasses. 

He didn't tell Merlin his idea. It was the kind of thing that got agents recalled sharpish and put out to pasture for a couple of months until they recovered, because Merlin had all the poetical feeling of a shagpile rug. 

“Have you found him yet?” Merlin said. 

“Yeah,” Harry said and ate a peanut. He leaned back and propped his feet on the edge of the balcony, ignoring the disapproving look of a piece of trust-fund hideousness at the next table. “I saw him in the lobby earlier. He appears to be entertaining this evening.”

Predictable, predictable, predictable. Zhukov’s beautiful blondes had been far more expensive than Baker’s flatscreen, no doubt, but the category of expenditure was exactly the same: toys, and tiresomely, viciously predictable. 

“All right,” Merlin said. “The buyer is en route to arrive on the Italian side of the border tomorrow afternoon. Everything's set up -”

“- For tomorrow, I know, I read my briefing,” Harry said patiently. “I thought I might spend the morning on the slopes, actually. I might try snowboarding.”

“And break a leg?” Merlin said. “Try snowboarding _after_ you've got the diamonds, please.”

“You worry too much,” Harry said. The little dots were flopped in the snow, now; from his vantage point Harry could just about see they were making snow angels. “Fancy suggesting I would be anything but perfect elegance on a snowboard.”

“Until you tried to go anywhere on it,” Merlin said. “Harry… are you all right?”

“I'm fine,” Harry said. A handsome waiter hove into view at the next table and Harry caught his eye and tilted his head slightly to order another round; the waiter acknowledged him smoothly and glided away. Merlin sighed into Harry’s ear and Harry, abruptly, said, “Goodnight, Merlin,” and stabbed at his glasses to turn them off. It was full dark, now; he couldn’t see anyone out there at all.

***

He dreamt of Eggsy. An ordinary weird dream, no more than snatches of Eggsy and himself in a churchyard something like the one in the village where he'd visited his grandparents as a child, climbing trees, but even that small memory fractured and spun into unreality as he drifted in grey pre-dawn half-wakefulness. 

Totally normal, he advised himself strictly as he shaved; Eggsy had been much on his mind: it was only to be expected he'd still be working that through. Harry's subconscious had better discipline than to allow it to go on too long. 

He didn’t try the snowboarding, although he seriously considered it. He did take the black run, careless and wildly glad for the frost-cold air streaming past. He turned and squinted up at it from the bottom, after, surprised as usual by the forbidding sheerness of the drop, a fierce white sun beating down on it and into his eyes. Harry liked the reminder, sometimes, that no matter what he dealt with, he was still small.

Well, in some ways.

“Nobody’s impressed,” Gwen said sourly, when he tapped the Kingsman ski goggles. 

He smiled, feeling his lips pull, chapped and chilly where he’d bitten down on his bottom lip in concentration and high spirits on the slope and licked the hurt reflexively after.

“Nobody?” he said, leaning on his poles.

“Fine, fine,” she said. He could hear fondness under the grudging, and it loosened something in him. “Still a nationally competitive time, you vain old arse.”

“Less of the old, thank you,” he said. “Eyesight’s still all right, at least,” and she swore and scrambled in London as he zoomed in on Zhukov and several of his companions below, starting to make a slow way off-piste.

***

It was all too embarrassingly James Bond for words, missing only the Union Flag parachute - theirs had the Kingsman symbol, obviously - and unexpected, as it should have been both later and easier, but Harry was pleased to have some unexpected henchmen to tackle, just before Zhukov could cross the blank expanse of snow that somehow or other represented the border. Ski boots made it awkward but skis and poles made it fun, and the white was decorated with blood and bodies before Harry was done, despatching them with satisfactory violence of perhaps just a touch more ruthlessness than usual, according to Merlin at least. 

“I suppose you've earned it,” Merlin said, grimly, later. “Just don't swallow it.”

“That's not what the men usually say to me, darling,” Harry said, watching the diamond fall softly into the cradle of the bottom of the glass, an explosion of effervescence travelling back up from it. He was inside, this time, a healthy log fire turning the pale splendour of the champagne into the colours of the sunset outside. 

As he raised the glass to his mouth he caught the eye of the faintly smiling young man reading a newspaper on the sofa discreetly angled away from Harry's own. He was handsome, anonymous, and his gaze dipped slowly enough to be brazen to Harry's mouth, dark with amusement and appreciation for the silliness of the diamond. 

“Good God, speaking of,” Gwen said, voice lively with mischief and approval. “You've the room tonight, Harry. Just don't let him walk off with that bloody diamond, we want them all back, if you please. He looks a bit light-fingered.”

Harry drained the glass; far more quickly than the vintage deserved, and when he looked back down the man had turned back to his newspaper. “No,” he said, and tipped the diamond out into his palm. “Thank you. I'll take the plane tonight.”


	12. Chapter 12

Harry stayed over at the estate, and wandered down late for breakfast. James was there, lingering over his tea and newspaper. He gave Harry a rather guarded, hopeful look and Harry fetched himself piles of hot toast and fresh coffee and joined him. 

“Op go off all right, old chap?” James asked as he sat down, with a slightly forced jollity. “We thought you'd hang round the slopes for weeks.”

“I wasn't in the mood,” Harry said briefly. “The op was fine. Straightforward.”

“Good, good,” James said. He looked back down at his paper and flicked over a couple of pages. “Oh, look, that American is coming back as an X Factor judge.”

“Please,” said Harry, “don't be trivial so early in the morning.”

“Well, I didn't realise there was a rule,” James said. “And it’s not actually that early.”

Harry looked down at the toast he was spreading marmalade onto and sighed. “Sorry. In and out, it was a bit…” he made the sweeping gesture that covered the whole run and stress of a short job, the inevitable crash after. 

“Mm,” James said with offensive gentleness, and then, hesitantly, “Harry, Merlin says I mustn't… but he's all right. Tripping along, he's a good lad, really.”

Harry wanted desperately to ask if Eggsy had mentioned him, if he'd wondered why Harry was gone, if he thought Harry had broken his promise to leave Eggsy out of it and abandoned him both. He ate a very large bite of toast and chewed slowly, as slowly as he could, swallowing the shameful urge down with it. 

“Glad it's going well,” he said, when he could trust his voice to behave normally. “How's Charlotte? Or other young lady, insert name here?”

“Uncalled for,” James said, folding up his newspaper and tapping it with a thoughtful forefinger, then absently rubbing the ink-smeared result on his grey sleeve while Harry winced for a drycleaner. “But not unfair. I was trying to reconcile with Charlotte, she really is splendid, you know. One really felt things could just be put in her hands and they'd be managed, you know?”

“Sounds like your mother,” Harry muttered. 

“It's funny you say that, because Gwen said something similar, and it was quite off-putting, actually. Although I think they'd rather I started up with Charlotte again. Savvy is blowing very hot and cold.”

He paused and glanced at Harry to check he was paying proper attention and Harry said supportively, “Is she?”

“Yes. And someone stuck a photo on my office door of when Hannah and I had that disagreement and she threw the eggs at me. I don't know if you remember that.”

“Well, vaguely,” Harry said.

“Yes, so I'm not sure we’re not already the subject of gossip, which doesn't bother me, but she's a private kind of woman,” James mused, now staring into space and settling into the rambling that Harry had seen him carry on for five minutes once without any sign of a pause for breath. Harry reached for James’ newspaper and opened it up. The X-Factor panel was shaping up shocking this year. 

***

Harry sauntered into Gwen’s office and spilled diamonds on her desk, pulling a rare startled, delighted laugh out of her instead of a greeting. “Pick one,” he invited. “I'll have it made up into something pretty. Merlin need never know.”

“Harry,” she said, trying to reprove, but her eyes were sparkling in the refracted light the diamonds were throwing, a dazzling show attracting half the office from their own desks to come and sift giggling through them. Gwen glanced at her staff and drew Harry away into a corner. 

“How did it go?”

“Fine, fine,” he said, surprised. “You were there.”

“I know, Harry, but we thought you might… stay on a bit. Relax, you know,” she said. Her hand on his forearm was soft and he covered it with his, patting her fingers before he dodged smoothly away from the contact. 

“So everyone keeps telling me,” he said. “I don't need the kid gloves treatment, really.” 

“No?” she said, watching him hawkishly. “Had a nice chat to James this morning, did you?”

“Very nice,” Harry said, meeting her gaze flatly.

She said, “He’s been told not to say anything to you about the Baker op. So have I.”

“I didn’t ask, did I,” Harry said.

She glanced back over to her desk, where Chrétien and Rose were still entranced by the diamonds. “What do you want, Harry?”

“I need a new file. Something that’ll keep me in London for the next few weeks.”

She raised an eyebrow at him; kept him hanging for a moment before she gave him a bare nod.

“And you can tell him,” Harry said, “I didn’t ask.”

***

The week after that drifted past in a haze of concern and research. As he'd got older Harry had come to a deep appreciation of the importance of high-quality drudgery and the odd leap of insight when it came to new missions, and he typically got involved quite a bit earlier than some of the other agents (although less than Billy, who was renowned for originating as well as taking his; as a result he averaged about two ops a year, but splendidly well done ones). 

This one was interesting enough; a suspected mole at the highest levels of fiscal decision-making in the government colluding with the banks, foreign governments, or both. Harry took a petty pleasure in the fact that neither the police nor MI5 seemed to have clocked it yet, and the opinion of Laura, the lead researcher on this one, was that there was too high a risk of involvement at their highest levels also to bring them in. 

As it was, he was mostly reviewing material she’d brought him and scoping out whether there was enough to act upon, and if so, what would be the best approach. It was a desk job, pursued half from the estate and half from his office at home, and left him plenty of time to be in a mild haze of anxiety over Eggsy. 

Broadly, nothing was happening, or merely nothing Gwen thought worth telling him about, which wasn't quite the same thing. He and Merlin weren't on the outs, exactly, but they weren't spending social time together as they would usually, James appeared to have fallen off the face of the planet, and Harry opened up his texts every day and stared at Eggsy's stream of messages, the date of the last one fading further and further into history. 

He found some scant diversion in the other senior agents. This meant a surfeit of booze he’d get tutted at for, probably, next time he had a medical, but unusually Adam, Billy and Alastair were all in London, on downtime or standby. Spending time with them was like putting on a worn dressing gown, slightly shabby at the elbows and ragged at the hem but warm and known and accepting of one’s unsavoury personal foibles.

He was in the beer garden on an unseasonably warm afternoon - jackets were off and Billy had gone so far as to loosen his tie slightly, which was practically unheard of - arguing in a desultory way about whether Adam’s council was overcharging him to collect his garden waste, when Savannah came along in a gaggle of over-wired researchers. She detached herself when she saw them and came over. 

“Hi, Savannah,” Alastair said. “Are you looking for James? He's not here today.”

“Oh no, I know,” she said. He gaze found Harry, stayed on him clear-eyed as she added, “He’s down with Gwen and Merlin. He’s got a bit of pressure on his op, looks like.”

Her gaze lingered on him meaningfully; he looked up at her while her message took up slow, poisonous residence in his brain. 

“Sorry to hear that,” Adam said. He was looking at Harry too; they all were, piercingly: it was common knowledge that Harry had been removed from the Baker op. He didn’t know if they knew why, but it was usually best, with Harry’s colleagues, to assume a working knowledge of the detail of absolutely everything that went on, up to and including who’d really shot JFK.

He held himself still, and at some unknown signal the energy of the table seemed to rise back around him. Billy said, “Who’s ready for another drink? Let me get a round in for you and your companions, Miss Phillips, I insist.”

“Not for me, thank you,” Harry said evenly. “I’m going to pop back to the office for a while.”

***

He slammed down into Merlin’s office. None of them even turned to look at him, focused on the three-way display. One of the screens was showing the familiar wasteland of Eggsy's flat, Redin and Baker sitting in silence on either end of the sofa, both of them pointed at a blaring television although Baker was the only one who seemed to be watching. Another had a poor-quality CCTV view of the airless corridors and tatty front doors of the wider estate. 

The third had no picture, but it was issuing sound: the raggedy, fast breathing of someone in panic. 

“- can put on some sort of fire alarm for the whole estate,” Merlin was saying to Gwen. He spared Harry a brief glance.

She turned to scrutinise the feed from the flat. “I’m not sure they’d bother to leave.” Her hair was caught up in a scraped bun, and Merlin had fine lines of tightness around his eyes and mouth.

James was in his shirtsleeves, one arm rolled up haphazardly where he was pressing a headset against his ear. That was where Harry went. James looked up at him, urgency and appeal in the pale set expression on his face, and hit the speaker.

“Just go out there,” he said, low and persuasive; there was no sign at all in his voice that he shared Eggsy’s panic, although his soothing tone said he understood and empathised with it. James was good at that: it was one of the things that made him valuable in the field, although it was terribly annoying when he decided to aim it at oneself. “It was your room before he turned up, wasn’t it? Can you tell them you wanted to get something of yours?”

“I _can’t_ ,” Eggsy said. He was almost whispering but his distress resounded clear through the office and Harry found it reflected in his own deadly pounding pulse. “I just - they’ll _know_ , and you ain’t seen him, you don’t know Dean - they’ll kill me.”

The worst part was that it didn’t sound like histrionics, or youthful hyperbole. Eggsy sounded flat, sure, desperately afraid.

“Looking for evidence in Redin’s room,” Gwen said to Harry quietly. “They were all supposed to be out all afternoon. Bombs, Harry. The explosives aren’t there, but the mechanisms, the timers - it’s not sewn up, but it’s more than incriminating.” She tapped at her tablet and the blank screen resolved into a slideshow of photos of things Harry recognised mostly from accompanying instructions like _first, put your head between your legs, second, kiss your arse goodbye, and third, cut the blue wire_. 

The photos were of the excellent resolution and detail provided by Kingsman’s standard basic surveillance earpiece and lapel camera and mike. He’d used the set many times himself, when the more complicated functions of the glasses weren't required. It wasn’t anything he’d ever considered offering to Eggsy, or would have asked him to use; certainly not for anything so dangerous as this.

“Where is he?” Harry said.

“Under the bed.” Her voice was familiar, too: it was the level easy way she’d said, _no, you're not going to die in a bloody hole in bloody Russia, but yes, I'll remember to tell your mother_.

“I see,” Harry said. “James, give me the headset. Now, please. Merlin, can you get me another view of the estate? The back of Baker’s flat, if there's a camera available.”

“Should be able to,” Merlin said, and as his fingers danced over the keyboard the CCTV screen shattered out into a half a dozen thumbprint views, then a dozen, and he and Gwen started to go through them. 

There was a cautious optimism heavy on the air as Harry put on the headset and took James’ place. 

“Eggsy,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This and the next chapter or two are rather short, but as a consolation I plan to post them a little more often!


	13. Chapter 13

The quality of the quiet on the other side of the connection changed, becoming anticipatory. Eggsy seemed to hold his breath for just a moment; when he blew it out again it was on a long calming exhale. He said, “Harry?”

“Yes, I'm here,” Harry said. Merlin touched his shoulder and indicated the screen, now showing the forbidding grey back of Eggsy's block. It was sheer, four storeys tall; the regularly placed small windows in the expanse of wall had narrow, grubby sills. Four vertical lines of guttering ran down to the ground. Merlin tapped his finger on one of the windows: Eggsy's flat was three floors up, the second property in. It was fortress-like, no doubt deliberately so: there was no way in or out.

But his mind was caught on the memory of Eggsy on that railway bridge, fluid and brave and impossible. Part of the estate was a community centre backed onto the flats, a squat building two floors high, close to the residential structure, probably to try to instill a sense of hope and oneness in the residents. It involved a flat roof, a flagpole with a dispirited Union Flag hanging off it, and it was an easy distance from there back round to the warren of walkways and stairs that wrapped round it and on to traverse the estate. Harry could see the potential path from Eggsy's window, scrabbling along the sills and off the gutter and a leap to the community centre. 

He couldn't have done it himself. But he thought possibly Eggsy could. 

Of course, if he tried but couldn't it would be far more dangerous than trying to brazen past Redin and Baker. The drop was high, and straight onto concrete. 

“They're out there,” Eggsy whispered and Harry closed his eyes against the hope in his voice. He wanted Harry to fix this for him; he trusted Harry would. 

“I know,” he said. “We’ve got a camera on the back of the building, Eggsy. Have you ever gone out of your bedroom window? Onto the community centre?”

“Don't talk fucking stupid,” Eggsy said, cutting off when his voice clearly wanted to rise. “It's a forty foot drop! I use the front door!”

“The front door isn't an option, is it?” Harry said. “I've seen you. I’m not saying it's not a challenge, but you can make it. You will be _fine_.”

They all heard Eggsy swallow. Harry fancied he could hear his drumming-hard heartbeat, but Kingsman’s equipment, while sensitive, wasn't that good. Possibly it was his own, running fast with cold blood. 

“Harry,” Eggsy said again. 

At the same time Gwen said, “ _Harry_ ,” throwing his attention to the bug. Baker was getting up off the sofa, scratching his arse, looking between the kitchen and the small corridor which led to the bathroom and bedrooms. 

Harry said, “Go. _Now_.”

Another unsteady breath. Two. And then the rustling of someone sliding out from a hiding place, hurrying yet trying not to make noise that could get them caught. A creak as Eggsy leaned on the open windowsill and all four of them locked their attention to the CCTV as hearing translated into sight. 

Eggsy stuck his head out first, gauging the lie of the land. Harry noticed his breathing again: it was still fast and light but regular, purposeful; Harry glanced at James and found James was looking back at him. It was a good trick, being able to take the panic, the adrenaline, and turn it into focus and fuel. It wasn't something that could be taught.

Baker was moving. Went in the fridge, came out with another beer, looked over his shoulder at Redin and brought out a second can. He took them over and put them down on the coffee table, but he didn't sit back down. 

They could see more of Eggsy now. He was perched just inside the window, perfectly balanced, pale in just a t-shirt. 

Baker said something to Redin, took a step towards the rest of the flat. 

“You're all right,” Harry said softly, and Eggsy moved. 

He was quick and light enough to be hard to follow, as if Harry's eyes were pausing to double-check what they were seeing before they reported in to his brain. All of the strength and power was in Eggsy's dynamism, his breath rocketing round the room from the speakerphone as he folded forward, seeming to flow down the wall like water. 

The drop barely seemed controlled but Eggsy caught his toes on the sill of the next window down, used the motion of a dangerous topple back to swing onto the gutter, slid down it for a second or two that stopped Harry's heart and then caught the motion, turned it somehow into a spring away from the wall with hands and feet, shiny white trainers flashing in the sun. For a moment he seemed to hang there, in flight. The video was grainy but his fierce, vicious smile of exhilaration was big enough for them to make it out and Harry's chest clenched with worry, and more, how bloody impressed he was. 

And then he miscalculated. Reached for the flagpole, legs already curving around to land him safely if hard on the roof, and he fell.

“Eggsy!” Harry yelled, lunging forward as if he were right there, as if he could pluck Eggsy from the air himself. Gwen grabbed his arm; she had the eerie blanket of calm that covered the best handlers at times of stress, but she dug her fingers into him so hard he could feel her nails through his shirt. 

On his other side, James landed a hand on his shoulder and gripped tight. “Harry - listen -”

The speaker was still on. He could hear near-choking breathing, terrified and in pain.

Merlin was at the tablet. The image switched abruptly; to the main road; and then a reversed side of the community centre. Eggsy was hanging off the edge of the building, one shoulder clearly barely holding him, feet scrabbling at the smooth walls.

“Tell him to pull himself up,” Merlin said.

“He’s hurt,” James protested.

“You all get hurt,” Gwen said urgently. “Harry!”

“Eggsy,” he said, striving for the sort of soothing _we’ll laugh about this later_ tone he was used to hearing from the other side. He closed his eyes against the sight of Eggsy dangling, but that seemed to make the hurt sound of Eggsy’s breathing resound around his skull and he opened them again. “Eggsy. I know you’re hurt. You have to pull yourself up.”

There was a grunt and Eggsy on the video turned his face into the wall. They heard, “Can’t. ‘S’too much.

“You have to,” Harry said steadily. He leant back into the arm Gwen put around his waist and watched Merlin, who had a hand wrapped round his mug of tea, looking down into it, his face shadowed; his fingers were bone-white against the ceramic. “It’s all right, you’re going to be all right. You have to pull yourself up. Trust me. You can do this, Eggsy. Get up. Get up, pull yourself up, I know you can do this.”

There was a sound like a strangled sob. Eggsy said something else: it was barely more than a whisper, barely anything, but Harry thought he heard his own name.

“Pull yourself up,” he said again. He would have considered praying, which he’d never done in any of his own foxholes, but he couldn’t remember the sodding words. “Come on, Eggsy. I’m here, you can do this.”

Another sound of effort and pain, and then the small figure moved. “ _Yes_ , Eggsy, come on,” he said, kept up the insistent stream of encouragement as Eggsy pulled himself up, slowly and agonisingly; even on the CCTV they could see the strain in his arms, the way he was favouring one shoulder but needed to rely on it to make the climb.

It took a couple of minutes - or possibly a couple of hours, time stretched like sickly pink candyfloss - and then Eggsy made a last heave and rolled hard and panting onto the concrete roof of the community centre.

“Jesus fuck,” Gwen said. Merlin reached for her and she let go of Harry and went to give him a quick, grimly celebratory hug. James clapped Harry on the shoulder, then again, and a third time, like a cymbals-crashing monkey toy gone wrong; Harry shifted out from under his hand.

“Well done,” he said quietly; it suddenly felt like a private line, although he was still surrounded by colleagues and Eggsy’s feed was still being relayed on the speaker. “Bloody well done, Eggsy. You’re all right.”

“Can’t stay here,” Eggsy said. He sounded like he was asking Harry to tell him yes, of course he could, wasn’t it nearly as good as a feather bed at the Savoy; Harry was intimately familiar with that, how wonderful even meagre comfort felt after a terrible fright, the world sharp and bright and _alive_.

“No,” he had to say. “Get up, I’m sorry, you can’t rest yet. Just get off the roof, Eggsy. Anyone looking out the window can see you there. Just get off the roof and you can rest, I promise.”

Eggsy gave a weary barking chuckle at that, but he got painfully to his knees, and wobbled to his feet.

“Is there somewhere you can go?” Harry said, as Eggsy made an achingly slow way to where it was an easy drop down to the walkway that wound around the community centre. “I’m coming to get you, but I’m some distance away, I’m sorry. Just get somewhere you can wait for me.”

He cursed the distance of the estate to central London. The engineers were ecstatic with themselves every time they shaved another five minutes off the shuttle journey, but it stubbornly refused to go below an hour. Even by air - but he could hardly land a helicopter in fucking Burgess Park.

“Yeah,” Eggsy said shortly. 

“Text me where you are,” Harry said. “You've - still got my number?”

Eggsy didn't answer and Harry said hastily, “It doesn't matter, I've got yours, I'll text it to you.”

Video-Eggsy dropped inelegantly off the roof and out of sight; they heard a muffled, sore noise as he landed. “Okay,” Eggsy said. He didn't sound very sure. Harry was loathe to say more in front of his audience, but part of him thought wistfully of how nice and easy it had been ten minutes ago, working towards a common goal in the midst of disaster, Eggsy open and willing to hear him. Going back to normal life was a bit of a letdown afterwards, as usual. 

“I'm gonna go,” Eggsy said. “I can't go round my mate’s with this in my ear.”

“All right,” Harry said, and he would have followed it up with a reminder to check his texts, and an ETA, and some basic instructions about treating his injuries, but there was a rustling and then a change in the quality of the silence on the loudspeaker, the distinctive lack of the closed connection. 

Harry took the headset off slowly. He checked the bug for the first time since Eggsy had jumped; after all that Baker hadn't even got up: he was slumped slug-like back on the sofa, the new lager already nearly empty. Redin was doing something on a tablet and ignoring his host, his own fresh can sweating rings onto the side table.

“We really did believe they’d be out,” James said appealingly and Harry threw the headset on the desk with a clatter. 

“What the fuck were you thinking,” he said, low. “All of you.” James looked indignant and Gwen looked remote; only Merlin seemed thoughtful. Harry said to him, “Get Asher and Stephens back in tomorrow. I'm having it back.”

***

He texted Eggsy from the estate, and from the shuttle, and from the shop; he rang up from the Savile Row pavement, lingering by the taxi. Eggsy didn't answer. Harry opened the tracker for the GPS on the phone they'd given him: it was off. 

“Aylesbury Estate, please,” he said to Roger anyway, helplessly, and brooded the whole way there. The small exquisitely-stocked bar called to him, and was resisted. 

He didn't quite know what to do when he got there. He rang Eggsy again; it rang out, again. He wasn't about to go and knock on Baker’s door, and he only knew one of Eggsy's friends, Ryan, by sight. Possibly he didn't even live on the estate, or if he did Eggsy might have gone to another mate. In fact, he probably had. If he'd left any trace, Eggsy wouldn't have wanted to risk leading a raging Baker and icy Redin to a close friend. 

He couldn't linger. It was the worst possible time to draw attention to Eggsy's hanger-on.

He became aware that he was being scrutinised by way of rearview mirror and sat back slowly. “Would you do a quick drive around the estate?” 

Roger gave him the most righteously judgemental look Harry had ever been on the wrong side of, and said, “Of course, Sir.”

Harry didn't expect to see anything, and he was not disappointed. Roger took him the scenic route back, to try to cheer him up; the river was very low, and it started to rain just as they reached Chelsea. 

***

He didn't resist the call of his home bar, pouring a snifter of cognac before he'd even taken off his shoes. It might as well have been White Lightning for all the care he took with it, tossing it back and pouring out another which he took up to the bedroom and sipped steadily as he changed out of his suit and into loose trousers and a soft grey cardigan. He found a pair of glasses that had been provided by Eyeworks rather than Kingsman, an older prescription but good enough for staring at the television for a couple of hours, put his slippers on, and went back down to the sitting room.

He checked his phone again. There was no contact: not from Eggsy, not even from any of his colleagues - not that he actually wanted to hear from any of that shower, but it was still annoying that they hadn’t been in touch. He turned it off. Then he turned it on again, on silent, and left it face-up on the other side of the sofa.

Turning on the telly and reflecting that despite a hundred channels there was nothing bloody on was a nice, comfortable place to settle his irritation and disquiet. He peered into his half-empty glass and thought that he should have brought the bottle in with him, and that was a safe thing to be cross about as well. Nugatory and easily fixable: those were the kind of problems he wanted to think about tonight, because if he thought about any of the others he’d probably throw the glass at the television, and then that would be a whole new problem, and he’d never get the smell of brandy out of the Axminster.

He sat nursing his petty displeasure with the world to a soundtrack of some game show for some time, and when the doorbell rang he had a moment of dissonance. He'd already got up to hunt out money for the delivery boy when it occurred to him that he hadn't got round to ordering anything. 

He wasn't quite at the point of paranoia some agents reached of habitually answering the door fully armed, but he switched on the light in the front hall, checked his umbrella was hanging innocently on its stand, and opened the door. 

Eggsy looked defiant and shabby, his face still a little creased with pain; he was holding the arm with the bad shoulder to his side with telltale careful stiffness. He said, “I don’t really have nowhere else to go,” raising his chin with a shadow of the swaggery attitude he'd had the first couple of times they'd met.


	14. Chapter 14

“It’s fine,” Harry said. He held the door open. “I was just starting to think about a takeaway.”

Eggsy stepped into the house and surveyed the hall. It was actually very normal, a bit gloomy because of the layout of the little house, prints on the walls and a carpet that really needed updating; Harry got his fun when guests went to the loo. Eggsy gave Harry a long look, which Harry stood for patiently and quietly. The door remained open behind them. 

Eggsy sighed and took off his cap, and sounding rather more on familiar territory said, “What you got round here that's nice?”

“A couple of good Indians, fish and chips, and a Chinese,” Harry said, and closed the door. “Let me find some menus.”

***

He sat on the stairs to put his shoes back on to go out and collect the curries. “Aren't you worried I'm gonna walk off with your silver?” Eggsy jibed; he was lingering in the doorway to the kitchen, leaning against it on his uninjured side in a way he might have meant to look cocky but just looked exhausted. 

“No,” Harry said calmly. “I know where you live, don't I?”

Eggsy gave him a lopsided scowl. 

“I might suggest a shower instead,” Harry said and Eggsy trailed him round the house as he fetched towels and a fresh t-shirt Eggsy could wear, and went into the medicine cabinet for some ibuprofen and a cold pack which he cracked and handed to Eggsy for his shoulder. Eggsy's eyes slid closed involuntarily as he worked it under his t-shirt and pressed it gently against the swelling Harry could make out there quite well: he'd been bloody lucky not to dislocate it, or worse. 

As he closed the front door behind him he heard the restrained yelp of a man who’d just come face-to-face with a stuffed dog, and gave a reluctant smile.

It was still damp, but not actually raining; the sky was grey-looming low, daylight balancing on its last edge. Harry buttoned up his coat and made sure he had the eco-friendly reusable bag one of James’ former paramours had forced on all his friends, and strode out.

There was something of a spring in his step. It was partly the reassurance of knowing, after what the day had brought, that Eggsy was safe and practically well; there was a certain amount of vindication, as well, having headed off Eggsy’s discovery in a way James nor anyone else at Kingsman could have done. 

He didn’t care to examine too closely what having Eggsy in his home meant to him. He’d offered a refuge, the lad had taken him up on it in extremis, that was all. The way forward was the important thing, Harry back in charge of his operation, and he urgently wished to draw it to a close, see Baker and Redin and however many connections could be managed in prison where they belonged.

Strictly speaking, the takeaway wasn’t a takeaway, but Harry was a regular customer and tipped with ferocious extravagance, so they accommodated him, on the condition that they nipped the food round to him under cover of darkness or he came round to the kitchen door to collect it, so everyone didn’t get the idea they could have the same favour. He usually took the delivery option, but he’d thought it might be as well to give Eggsy a few moments alone, and the brisk air was restorative for him as well.

He took collection of his dinner from Vish, got an update on his daughter’s GCSEs, and handed over three extra crisp twenties for sharing round the kitchen staff. As silences went, it was quite a cheap one.

***

When he got back and had plated up the food, he went upstairs to the sitting room and found Eggsy ensconced comfortably in the t-shirt and the sofa, having found and appropriated both the remote control and Harry’s expensive booze.

“This is nice,” he said, raising the glass to Harry in a toast.

“It ought to be,” Harry said and passed Eggsy’s tray over. “I’ve given you some chips as well.” He hoped the meal was all right: he’d had to convince them to go slightly off-menu to make the dish Eggsy had requested.

“Ain’t you going to say nothing about me drinking?” Eggsy said. He pulled one of Harry’s sofa cushions into his lap and balanced his plate on it carefully; Harry had to physically stop his eyebrow from twitching upwards.

“No,” Harry said. He was, however, going to cut Eggsy off after the one glass. He was only just eighteen, after all; Harry had probably done enough corrupting the youth where Eggsy was concerned without adding enabling an alcohol habit to the charge sheet. “It won’t go very well with the food, though.”

Eggsy swirled the remaining brandy round the glass with a contemplative expression, sniffed it in a way that suggested he was copying something he’d seen on television, and then put it on the side table, nudging it away. “That’s okay. I don’t really think it’s nice. Tastes like mud piss.”

“No point wasting it,” Harry said. “Hand it over.”

That got something approximating a real grin. There was only a couple of mouthfuls left and Harry knocked it back before he applied himself to his supper.

Other than Harry's own things on the walls and shelves around him, it could have almost been one of their evenings in the hotels. Eggsy controlled the channel, with the usual series of programming choices Harry would not have made if left to himself, and relaxed in Harry's company so slowly that Harry could only tell by comparing Eggsy to how he'd been in increments of twenty or thirty minutes ago, like a stop-motion video of the sun making its arc across the sky. 

On the fourth ad break go-around of the young man in the high heels shaking his arse, Eggsy said, "I really thought I was going to die."

_Shit_. Harry knew just how to play these conversations with his fellow agents: the cheerful kindness that braced them all up, reminded them that they might be dead any bloody minute, but if they were it was all in a good cause, and if they weren't there was a pint waiting for them when they got home. Being in fear of one's life was entirely commonplace: it was pulling oneself together and carrying on regardless that mattered and they were all perfectly aware of it. But _yes, well, old chap, but you didn't_ didn't seem like it would be a very helpful response to Eggsy. 

In the end he just said, quite softly, "Yes." He angled his body in his armchair to Eggsy's, tried to make himself seem open and inviting of any confidences Eggsy wished to unburden. Eggsy made a face and poked at his cold rice and Harry said, "You did very well. Despite that." He hesitated a moment and then added, "I was proud of you."

"Was you?" Eggsy said. Hope sounded like dawn in his voice; small, rising. "Shame s'not the kind of thing you can put on the army application form, innit."

"Not the application form," Harry said carefully. "But there are ways for us to have it taken into account. If you're sure that's what you want."

"Yeah? Good to know. Must be nice being born with a silver spoon up your arse," Eggsy said; whatever he'd been hoping Harry would say, Harry had the definite sense of having failed to say it. "I should go. Thanks for the scran."

“Of course,” Harry said. “Or. You're welcome to stop over. There's a spare room.”

“I know,” Eggsy said. He was fidgeting, fingers twisting in the hem of the t-shirt, but he was also sinking back into the sofa, unconsciously graceful, his eyelids drooping as if they'd been waiting for permission. “I had a look round while you was out.”

“I expected nothing less,” Harry said.

That seemed to be agreed all round. Thus settled, Eggsy cast him a quick, embarrassed look and got up and went and looked at Harry's bookshelf, holding himself like he was waiting to be told he couldn't borrow one, or wouldn't understand any of them, or that only little nancy boys read books. 

“I'll go and sort out your room,” Harry said, although he dearly wanted to know what Eggsy would pick. He knew his bookshelves well enough, he could probably figure out what was missing after Eggsy had gone to bed. 

He poured a glass of water and got some more ibuprofen, collected another towel, a spare toothbrush and soap, and found some pajama trousers that would be too long but Eggsy would probably cope somehow. He could throw Eggsy's own clothes - somewhat grubby from the roof - in the wash. It all felt very odd and domestic: usually the only person who ever stayed over was Merlin, and if he’d wanted washing doing Harry would have made him do it himself. 

He dropped them off in the spare room. Eggsy was already there, sitting on the bed looking at his book; Harry tried to crane not too obviously to see what it was. Montaigne’s _Essays_ ; Christ, but Eggsy was full of surprises.

Eggsy looked a little self-conscious. He took the things from Harry and said, “Why you got a dead dog in the bog?”

“Because there's too much sun on the sitting room, he'd get faded,” Harry said. Eggsy gave a half-smile and smoothed a hand over the cover of the book. It was a nice edition, the burgundy leather of the spine cracked and worn; it had been in Harry's mother’s collection, inscribed to her from his grandfather on her eighteenth birthday. He'd sold off most of the library when they'd passed away, to a single good home, but he'd kept a few favourites. He wondered if Eggsy had noticed the inscription, faded black ink and scrawling old-fashioned penmanship, or just chosen a book that seemed well-loved. 

“If you pop your clothes by the door when you're changed I'll put them in the wash,” he said. “I'll be up for some time yet, so just let me know if you need anything else.”

“Yeah, thanks, great,” Eggsy said. 

He stood up, gaze fixed on Harry's face, and Harry realised the kiss was coming a mere split second before Eggsy's mouth was on his.


	15. Chapter 15

Eggsy was off-target, nervous; his mouth glanced off Harry's. His lips were dry and he gripped Harry's arm lightly, flexed his trembling fingers hard, softened up again.

Harry took smooth control of the kiss for one bright second, coaxed security and passion from Eggsy's mouth and body against his; and pulled away. 

He said, “Eggsy.”

Eggsy was turning a dull red, mortification and shame stiffening him. He was anxious, which probably meant he would shortly turn belligerent. He started, “Look, just -” and Harry pulled him into a hug, close and tender, his arms wrapped round Eggsy's thin torso, careful of his sore shoulder. Eggsy was just the right height for Harry to press his lips gently to Eggsy's temple. 

Eggsy stayed tight and scared for a few moments and then he shuddered hard in Harry's arms, once, and relaxed almost to the point of limpness, allowing Harry to hold him. Another few moments passed and he was clinging round Harry's neck and at the bottom of his shirt, his knuckles digging into Harry's belly.

They stayed like that until Eggsy shifted; Harry could have gone much longer. 

He released Eggsy immediately and stepped back. He was warm where he and Eggsy had been touching and when he took a deep breath, he had to stop it from releasing on a sigh. Eggsy met his gaze for a moment, clear-eyed, and then wiped a hand over his face, dropped back onto the bed. He reached for the book and held it in his lap, rubbing over the texture of the leather binding. 

“Sleep well,” Harry said quietly. He shut the door behind him as he went out. 

***

Eggsy left his dusty clothes outside the door and Harry collected them up and threw them in machine with the small part of his own laundry that didn't go to the drycleaner. Then he poured another drink, hefty, and sat down with it in the kitchen. 

The thing to do, unequivocally, was to inform Merlin that Eggsy's attachment to him had turned compromising, and withdraw, again, from the operation. It wasn't something he could share in confidence, or as friends; Merlin would insist on acting on any such information, and he would be right to do so. 

On the other hand - and Harry was very good at finding another hand, when he needed one, which was a useful skill both in personal combat and craven self-justification - he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to lose the mission again, and he didn’t want to turn Eggsy back over to James. There was absolutely no chance of anything happening, on both their sides. Eggsy had had a long day and a big shock and a small drink, and would probably be appalled to wake up in the morning and think he’d made a clumsy pass at a man rapidly rounding the corner on fifty. It wouldn’t be mentioned again, which was almost like it hadn’t happened, and if it hadn’t happened, there was nothing to say to Merlin at all.

Pleased with this conclusion, Harry topped up his drink, pulled out his current jigsaw puzzle (the west face of York Minster, 1000 piece: white stone, Gothic jiggery-pokery, very tricky), and waited for the washing machine to finish.

***

There was a faint light glowing under the door of the spare room, but it was quiet, so he kept quiet too. It seemed just about possible Eggsy liked to sleep with a light on; so had Harry, at various points of his past, it wasn’t something he was going to draw attention to. He checked all the doors and windows, got washed and changed into fresh pajamas, and was just finishing his routine nighttime puttering about when there was a soft knock on the door. 

“Everything okay?” he said. Eggsy was in the pajama bottoms and the same t-shirt, looking small in Harry's clothes and tousled, carrying his book like a talisman. 

“Can I stay in here?” Eggsy said. He was pink again but he met Harry's gaze calmly. 

Harry considered this. It didn't seem a very good idea. He said, “All right.”

Eggsy came in and Harry pointed him to the pillow he tended to sleep less on: he'd slept alone so long he couldn't really be described as having a ‘side’ of his own. Eggsy put the book down carefully on the bedside table and climbed under the covers, drawing them up to his chin. 

“I'm going to read for a bit,” Harry told him and Eggsy nodded. Harry found his book - on lepidoptery, and a dry specimen of such in a competitive field, and therefore perfect bedtime reading - and fluffed up a couple of cushions. He sat upright on the other side of the bed, on top of the duvet, and opened it up. 

Eggsy watched him for a good few minutes. Then he curled up at Harry's side, not quite close enough to touch, and went to sleep.

***

Eggsy left in the early hours of the morning: the door Harry heard shut was the spare bedroom, rather than the front door, so he rolled himself under the covers and went to sleep properly. He was bloody freezing. 

***

Having seen so much of the footage of Eggsy's flat Harry was expecting a late appearance come morning, and indeed that was what happened. Harry was fully dressed and had more or less caught up on James’ reports and correspondence from while he'd been off the mission, access turned on some time overnight with no other comment, but he'd waited to eat. As soon as he heard movement upstairs he made a start on eggs, bacon, and piles of toast. 

It had also been long enough Eggsy's own clothes were dry and waiting outside his door, so Eggsy was dressed but still seemed barely awake when he slunk downstairs. 

“Morning,” Harry said, and dished up a plentiful helping of breakfast. Feeding Eggsy was as satisfying as always. “Would you like coffee? Tea?”

Eggsy cast a distrustful look at the French press and said, “Posh tea or proper tea?”

“Proper tea,” Harry said. It was breakfast tea, anyway, although it was conceivable Eggsy would consider Twinings posh. 

“Yeah, please,” Eggsy said. Harry filled the kettle again and flicked it on. 

“Did you sleep well?” he asked dutifully. 

“Yeah, thanks,” Eggsy said. He was sneaking little looks at Harry that he probably thought Harry wasn't noticing. 

Harry found a few packets of sugar he'd brought back from some hotel, somewhere, at some point, and put them on the table with a jug of milk. He switched the kettle off three precise seconds before it went off automatically, poured water straight over the teabag, and gave Eggsy that too. 

“Thanks,” Eggsy said. He wrapped both hands round the mug and bent his head for a moment, inhaling the steam of the infusing tea. 

“You're welcome,” Harry said. He sat down and applied himself to his own breakfast. The bacon was fine, but not great; he was always leaving things in the freezer a bit too long. 

Eggsy put away his cooked breakfast while tearing through rounds of heavily-buttered toast like it was his job. Harry ate more sedately and got up to put more bread in the toaster. 

Behind him, Eggsy blurted, “I'm, it ain't - Dean, he's - it's okay with him if it's for money, but, if he thought I was actually a poof - so I never -”

“You don't have to explain anything,” Harry said. By the time he came back to the table Eggsy was looking a little brighter. Harry ventured, "It’ll be fine. Whatever happens - you'll be safe from Baker. And your mother will." That, at least, he could guarantee. Even if the op, the terrorism link, fell through - especially if it did, even. There were lots of ways to make sure a man like Baker didn't bother anyone again. 

Eggsy looked up at him, startled; perhaps he heard the threat, more than he had before. Harry smiled at him reassuringly and said, "How about another egg or two? Fried or scrambled?"

***

Christopher looked up when he went into the shop and gave Harry his usual grave greeting, then did a slight but definite double take. 

“Christopher, this is Eggsy,” Harry said. “Eggsy, Christopher.”

He nudged Eggsy. Christopher was coming around the counter, his ‘customers’ smile on his face, and Eggsy put out his hand without further prompting. 

“It's a pleasure to meet you,” Christopher said. He gave Eggsy a discreet splitsecond look over, taking in the baggy jeans and t-shirt bunched under his hoody (it was another of Harry's) and the everpresent hat. He said to Harry, “They're waiting for you, Sir. In the dining room.” He put the faintest reproachful emphasis on _waiting_. Harry cared not. He'd been a good boy for weeks and now, of all times, he was reclaiming his right to be flagrantly, gloriously, piss-takingly late. 

“Thank you,” he said. “Perhaps you could show Eggsy round the shop, while I'm otherwise detained?”

Eggsy looked not entirely delighted by this, which Harry didn't feel bad about. Eggsy had asked to come to work with him, and this was where Harry worked. It wasn't all explosions and car chases and martinis. 

“Certainly,” Christopher said. “Are you interested in tailoring, Sir?”

Eggsy looked horrified at being addressed as sir. “Er. Not… really.”

“I won't be long,” he said to Eggsy in an undertone, and took the stairs two at a time, as usual. 

Stephens turned to look at him as Harry sailed into the dining room. Asher didn't but it was clear that the news of Harry's return to the fray had gone down about as well as a bucket of cold sick. James was looking rumpled on the other side of the table, Merlin sat military-straight next to him. 

“Agent Galahad,” she said coldly as he took his seat on Merlin’s other side. It was like a job interview, where both sides considered themselves the interviewer. 

“Detective Inspector,” he said. “Mr Stephens.”

“Nice to see you again,” Stephens said unconvincingly. 

Asher said, “We’d started with the most pressing matter. Eggsy Unwin is missing.”

“How fortunate that I arrived,” Harry said. “He's downstairs. What's the second most pressing matter?”

“I beg your pardon,” Asher said icily. “He's downstairs? Are we to understand he was with you overnight? Merlin, I absolutely have to object to this. When we agreed to make this a joint exercise it was on the explicit understanding that Kingsman would adhere to best practice in this area.”

“Don't worry,” Harry said. “It isn't as if I can get him pregnant.”

He gave her a sharp smile; she looked incandescent at the invocation of the recent embarrassment. 

“Well, I think I have to object too,” Stephens said. “This is a young man we’re talking about, and to see things going in this direction -”

“I don't care for what you're implying,” Harry said coldly. “I provided Eggsy with an ad hoc safe house, no more. We’ve asked a great deal from him, and may I remind you that when I left this operation, he was an access agent; you’re the ones who decided to send him poking into Redin’s personal things. He _is_ a young man, and he needed a break.”

“Kingsman’s intransigence -” Asher started. 

“I'm sorry, but I don't think there's any value in this topic,” Merlin said wearily. “Our independence is not up for debate. What else do we need to cover today?”

“Your independence,” Asher snapped. “My seniors are coming under considerable pressure from the Home Office for useful intelligence from this operation.”

“Kingsman doesn't work on the basis of political prioritisation,” Harry said, throwing it in the middle of the conversation like Moses bringing down the tablets from the mountain.

“When you're working with us you’ll bloody well fall into line,” Asher said and Harry met her gimlet stare dead on.

“Please, this is hardly constructive,” Stephens said, his hands raised; Harry wasn't sure whether it was anxiety or just practicality. He radiated a grey, quiet dislike. “The priority - the _shared_ priority, surely - is to bring this operation to a satisfactory conclusion and protect the public and Mr Unwin. I don't see that politics enters into that at all.”

Merlin knocked his knee against Harry's warningly. Harry didn't allow his fingers to drum on the table and said, “It has its own pace.”

Asher poured herself a refill of coffee, her movements stiff. They all watched her add milk and stir, and take a delicate sip. “Agreed,” she said. “I do have something to report on that front. After Unwin provided the directory of the gang members we had a check put on at the Royal Mail. Over the last week or so they've intercepted a few dodgy packages. Nothing immediately suspicious, but at volume… it’s likely more have gone through without being spotted as high risk.”

“Packages of what?” Merlin said. 

“Drain cleaner with a high concentration of nitric acid,” she said. “In light of Unwin’s discovery in Redin’s room yesterday, it looks like they're ready to build their bomb.”

“The chemists break-in Eggsy reported,” James said suddenly. He turned to Harry and said, “Have you read - doesn't matter. He'd heard Petersen talking about it in the pub. He passed it on more as a curiosity, he thought they were after drugs. Oxycodone, dihydrocodeine, morphine, principally.”

“Yes,” Asher said. “Aside from the one Unwin knew about, we’ve had another two in different parts of south London over the last week where pharmacists have reported theft of regulated explosives precursors.”

“I shared these photos of his from yesterday with some colleagues,” Stephens said. “Their judgement was that there could be a viable device, more likely two, within the week.” He nodded at Asher. “Assuming high explosives, yes.”

Harry hated to give the creature any credit, but he hadn’t been wrong: after the sniping they'd started with, the room was nearly shimmering with a sense of shared purpose. He could feel it in himself, the instinct of a situation falling together, the savage joy of knowing that soon, one way or another, it would come to a head. 

“I’d like to ensure that whatever we do, we get as many of them red-handed as possible,” Asher said. 

“I agree,” Stephens said. “And MI6 have expressed their keen interest in getting Redin at a point they can be certain of an arrest and a conviction. He's no suicide bomber, he's very good at being three TGV cities over before his devices do their damage.”

“Are you talking about allowing them to plant their bomb?” James said slowly. 

“Obviously not live,” Asher said impatiently. “Unwin can offer us access to the components before it’s assembled, they're in his home. We can tamper with the device before it’s even built.”

“It can be done unnoticeably?” Stephens said. He sounded rather uncomfortable to be so close to the pointy end of things; perhaps he put his reports and papers to bed at night and dreamed of a world where they were all that was needed. 

“It’s probable,” Harry said. He glanced at Merlin, who nodded. Incendiary devices were Billy’s specialty - when they were in unkind moods, the agents were known to call it his hobby - and Harry had often worked in the field with Billy’s guidance on the other end of the glasses. “I think we can manage it.”

Asher started, “You -” 

“Yes,” Harry said flatly. “Difficult enough for him to bring me into his home, and we’ve built up a reasonable enough cover. Anything else simply won't do.

“He wouldn't allow it with anyone else. The trust isn't there,” James said and Harry met his gaze across Merlin's pointy nose. 

Stephens glanced nervously as Asher. She said, “If we must, then. You'll let us know the arrangements?”

“I'll be in touch,” Merlin said, rising. A round of still-frosty goodbyes, albeit she unbent enough to shake Harry's hand, and James was escorting them out and Harry and Merlin were alone.

Harry slouched back down a little in his seat, looking up at Merlin. Merlin watched the closing door for a moment and then sat on the edge of the table, stretching his long legs in front of him and crossing them at the ankles, rubbing a hand over his head. 

“Is he really downstairs?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Merlin said, injecting it with an impressive amount of the woebegones.

“I thought we could use a tea boy.”

“Harry. What happened?”

“Nothing you need worry about,” Harry said. He refused to fidget. 

“That's not the same as nothing nothing,” Merlin said. “You do realise how utterly outside of acceptable this is, I suppose? I hate the words ‘best practice’ as much as the next man but she has a point.”

“You're arguing,” Harry said, “with results. Someone of Eggsy's age and position was never going to be a standard job. They acknowledged as much when they brought us in.”

Merlin was studying him in a way Harry didn't much care for. “Hmm,” he said, and he said that in a way Harry didn't much care for either. 

“Oh, do sod off,” Harry said. He pushed off the table and rose, buttoning his jacket. “I'm going to put it to him about coming to check out Redin’s device. Michelle Baker is back in residence, I assume? He won't like that, isn't there some sister or aged aunt we could pack her off to for a while?”

Merlin pushed off the table and opened the door, gesturing Harry out ahead of him. Founders in oils and gilt framing scowled down at them as they walked through the hall. 

“Gwen and James have cooked up a bit of an idea about that, actually. You know how soft he is. They want to tell her she's won a mum-to-be pampering weekend or something. Savannah picked the hotel. It's very plush. I think she's instructed James he can take her there for a weekend.”

“That's still going on, is it?” Harry said. The familiar rhythms of Kingsman fell around him like his most comfortable old suit. 

“I believe so,” Merlin said darkly. “Nobody tells me anything round here. Ah, Christopher, kind of you to look after our guest.”

“We’ve been looking at the gentlemen’s spring suits. Mr Unwin has a singular taste,” Christopher said benevolently. There was a slight furrowing of his brow as he mentioned the singular taste, leaving Harry with the impression Eggsy must have produced an opinion even more trendy than James’, Christopher's current benchmark for pain, but beneath that the gaze he rested on Eggsy as he turned his attention back to his counter was avuncular and kind. 

“That means shit taste, don't it,” Eggsy said as Harry drew him away, but very quietly; he seemed to have taken a shine to Christopher as well, but then people usually did. “What do I know about bloody suits?”

“There's nothing wrong with knowing what you like,” Harry said. “Merlin, you remember Eggsy.”

“We saw one another the other week,” Merlin said. Eggsy narrowed his eyes at him, so there was some story about the transition to James they weren't telling him. 

“Lovely, yes. Eggsy, could you come through to the fitting room for a moment? I need to speak with you about something,” Harry said, and shooed Merlin away before he could bother Harry's agent any further. 

“I was thinking, you better come back with me,” Eggsy said, unexpectedly, trailing Harry into fitting room one. He paused at the doorway, taking in the traditional opulence with a momentary look of consternation and bright longing on his face. “Sorry, what was I… give me an excuse for not going home last night, yeah.”

That Eggsy might be thinking of making his way in this world wasn't entirely a surprise. Harry thought briefly of bringing Eggsy here for quite another purpose: the mirror, the estate, a competition. Eggsy wasn't so very much younger than Harry himself had been, and he more than had the temperament. 

Chester had always steadfastly resisted Harry's attempts to bring in any candidates a little more diverse, but things were changing all over. They hadn't had a recruitment in over ten years, and God willing there wouldn't be an unexpected one any time soon, but there were other ways for spots to open up than someone dying on the job. They were an ageing group, for one; Lancelot was the youngest active agent at Table and much as he hated this inconvenient truth he'd never see his mid-thirties again, nor, frankly, the peak attractiveness of his late thirties. 

Then, too, they had much more work than they could handle; Merlin was always squabbling with the Statesmen, Nibelungen, Tairén, Ghandamee and other national branches while they all tried to offload jurisdiction on one another. And yet Kingsman hadn't created a new position since Bedivere, back in the eighties. Mainly because to do so required a unanimous vote, and Kingsmen refused unanimity on principle. 

He put the idea away for further examination later. “I think that's a good idea,” he said, and explained what they wanted to do with the bomb components, careful to elide the detail of what they knew about the explosives and the rest of the operation. Eggsy looked dismayed when Harry mentioned visiting his flat, but he nodded along. 

“What if they come back? Like yesterday,” he said. 

“We won't have a repeat of that,” Harry assured him. “It wasn't - quite how I would have done things, Eggsy. We’ll arrange a distraction, this time. Something that will keep them at the pub or wherever for a while.”

“Wouldn't you?” Eggsy said. He wiped his hand on his jeans. “But you was - I did all right, didn't I?”

“You did spectacularly,” Harry said balancing the heights of the praise with the matter-of-factness of his tone. “I couldn't have asked for more from a trained and experienced agent.”

Eggsy glowed. “And Mum - that's nice. A spa day. I think she knows something ain't right. She's been going round her mate Denise’s a lot.”

Harry made a note to look into ‘Denise’. “Yes. Sorry we didn't think of it before packing her off to hospital.”

“I think she didn't mind the hospital, really,” Eggsy said judiciously. “I went to see her every day. She's started texting with a woman due a couple of weeks before she is.”

“No harm done, then,” Harry said. “Shall we go? What did you have in mind?”

“D’you remember that caff we met in, up Oval?” Eggsy said, and Harry indicated he did. Eggsy eyed his suit, looked round the room and said, “Don't suppose Christopher’s got you one of those granddad cardigans?”

Cheeky little bugger. “You cheeky little bugger,” Harry said, and Eggsy grinned.


	16. Chapter 16

It was a bit early for Victoria sponge, but one only lived once, and despite having eaten an enormous amount of breakfast Eggsy seemed to be hungry again. Harry bought himself a slice and Eggsy an ambitiously creative tiffin, and two coffees, allowing Eggsy to carry them on a tray to a table by the window. 

“Is it really likely we’ll be seen here?” Harry said when they'd taken their seats. “Can I expect another telling-off from your friend Ryan?”

“Nah, he's at his dad’s this week in Birmingham,” Eggsy said absently, over-sugaring his coffee. “We might be. Someone says something to someone else. You know. Dean’s proper paranoid about shit like that. He told a bloke some rubbish last year, waited for it to get round then battered him for it.”

The grapevine, of course; a powerful and unpredictable tool. Adam was very good at manipulating that kind of wide-scale communications: his mind made patterns everywhere, the kind of careful detail that made him so good at poisons, as well. Harry worked better on smaller groups. He thought of the network analysis Gwen had done based off Eggsy’s dossier of Baker’s gang, the spiralling constellation of it: estates, schoolfriends, casual jobs, romantic entanglements. Part of the problem with gangs like Baker’s was that when the spider moved it could be almost impossible to tell where the web shook. 

“Of course,” Harry said. The cake was very nice. He gazed out of the window, watching people cut through the church grounds.

“Is he your mate, the one I met then?” Eggsy asked.

“What, Merlin?” Harry said. “Yeah. It can be challenging, this work. Friends make good colleagues, and colleagues make good friends.”

“I can see that,” Eggsy said. “It’s weird, not telling my mates what I been up to.”

It seemed like he was working his way round to something, so Harry made a polite noise and stirred his coffee round again before he took a long sip. Eggsy ate half his tiffin in two big bites, struggled to chew through the excessive marshmallow, and finally said, “In that book of yours. I was reading the one about the liars.”

“Ah. _I have a decent lad as my tailor, whom I have never heard to utter a single truth, even when it would have been to his advantage._ One of my favourites.”

Eggsy smiled with pleasure at the quotation. “It just made me think a bit, you know. About what I was doing.”

“He’s very good for that,” Harry said. “What? I do have a conscience, Eggsy. I’m not trying to make you abandon yours. You can have the book, if you like.” He made the offer impulsively, and then waited for the regret, but it didn’t come. His mother would have liked Eggsy: she’d have been irrepressibly charmed by him, and taken no shit from him whatsoever. 

Eggsy looked wildly embarrassed and Harry laughed. “You already nicked it, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t!” Eggsy said; he looked relieved at Harry’s reaction and he even laughed a little himself. His laugh was distinctive, high and explosive; Harry wasn’t sure he’d heard it quite so real before. “I borrowed it. I was gonna give it you back, truth. It’s your mum’s, innit? I can’t keep your mum’s book.”

“You can if I give it to you,” Harry said. “Please. I insist.”

“All right,” Eggsy said. He managed to make it sound begrudging but he looked vivid with satisfaction. He said, “ _The opposite of a truth has a hundred thousand shapes_.” His voice was a decent imitation of Harry’s, which was a rhythmic declaiming habit learned years ago from Winchester’s rhetoricians, and Harry smiled back at him, amused.

“Mmm,” he said. “Actually, in my experience, so does the truth.”

“Yeah,” Eggsy said. He frowned and ate the rest of his cake, their easy companionship drained away abruptly. Harry didn’t quite understand why. He drank more of his coffee and looked out of the window again, watching cyclists jump red lights. At one point Eggsy eyed up the rest of Harry's cake, too, and Harry handed it over wordlessly. 

Eggsy polished it off with a bare murmur of thanks and said, “I better get off, yeah? I'll let you know about coming to check things out.”

“Thanks,” Harry said. There was an annoying little bell that jangled as Eggsy went out. Harry watched him saunter off down the street, hands jammed in his pockets. 

***

Harry went for his Friday night pint with a calm sense of a week well done. Tomorrow night he'd be in Eggsy's flat performing the simple sabotage job while Baker and Redin were stuck in the Black Prince by a raid for underage drinkers. Harry had his sympathies for anyone of a tender age trying to enjoy a quiet and (otherwise) blameless drink, but needs must.

“Evening, Harry,” Adam said. He looked florid and cheerful, folding up a week-old Evening Standard he was reading and using it to brush off the seat next to him. 

Harry eyed his glass of Scotch and took the seat. “Celebrating?”

“I am,” Adam said expansively. “Signed off for active duty by that brute in the gym. I thought this day would never come. I've asked Merlin has he anything in the south of France.”

“This day almost didn't come,” Alastair said, returning from the bar and pushing Harry's Guinness to him. “Squeaked through by the skin of your teeth, I hear.”

“But through nonetheless!” Adam said. “The knees have got another year or three in them yet.”

“As the actress said to the bishop,” Harry said. “Well, congratulations.” He lifted his glass in a toast; the three of them clinked and were echoed as Merlin joined them, sloshing cold ale over Alastair’s fingers as he dropped onto a stool. 

“Congratulations indeed,” he said. 

“Anything going badly on the Riviera?” Adam said hopefully. 

“You'll take what I give you and like it,” Merlin said. “Take Dorothy away for your anniversary on your own time.”

“Oh, of course,” Harry said, surprised into swift rummaging through memory banks for the date. “Gold clock time, is it?”

“I am having her great-uncle’s grandfather clock repaired. It's horrible, but sentimental value, you know. I said to her, it's rather fitting, isn't it, dear, this little marker of our time together.”

“And she said she'd have got less for murder,” Merlin muttered. 

“She did,” Adam said, affectionately. “She's looking forward to me being out and about again. She says I've been underfoot. She thinks you've been very strict with me, Merlin.”

“I wouldn't go that far,” Merlin said. “Hello, James. Pull up a pew.”

“No young lady?” Alastair said, shuffling aside for James to draw up another stool. 

“I think she'll be in with the team later,” James said. “Merlin, has she -”

“ _Oh_ no,” Merlin said severely. “This isn't the schoolyard and I won't be telling tales.”

“Not going well?” Adam said sympathetically. “Tell Uncle Adam, James. Allow me to advise you in the ways of the womenfolk.”

“Allow _me_ to advise you in the ways of the womenfolk,” Harry said. “Start by not calling them the womenfolk.”

James ignored them both. “It's not that it isn't going _well_ , exactly. She's very game -” (“Hah!” Merlin muttered, explosively, into his pint) “- but to be honest, the thing is, I'm not entirely sure she actually _likes_ me.”

“That does tend to put a stopper on things,” Adam said. “Can't help you there though, sorry, old thing. Women love me.”

“Could we please discuss something else?” Alastair said. “This is excruciating. Harry, how do you fancy Surrey against Yorkshire?”

“I never do,” Harry said. “They've still no bowler worth the name.”

“Harry's working this weekend, anyway,” James said bad-temperedly. “Michelle Baker was delighted with her ‘prize’, Harry, were you watching? Eggsy played a blinder, one has to give it to him. Car’s picking her up tomorrow at twelve.”

“I know,” Harry said. Eggsy had very much done well, but then his happiness at his mother's good fortune was likely unfeigned: he didn't want her around their weekend's work or Redin any more than Harry did. 

“Good-oh,” James said, happy again. “Who needs another drink?”

***

The charmless external corridors of Eggsy's home were empty as the sun went down, inhabitants out or installed in front of the television or cooking; smells of curry, fish and chips, roasting meat, and garlic fought one another in the still air. Harry rested his hand on the cold concrete as he walked up the stairs, thinking unwillingly of Eggsy's desperate scramble up these walls, only a few days ago, how hard and unforgiving the surface was. Due north, the rosy fingers of dusk glimmered off the Gherkin and were thrown back down to the City. 

He reached Eggsy's flat and knocked lightly on the door. He knew from the video feed that there had been quite the clean-up operation during the day, Baker jeering and asking Eggsy if he wanted to wear a pinny, if he was going to tart around with a feather duster. Harry had felt pulled between a feeling that his duty was to watch, and the keen awareness that Eggsy would rather he didn't see it. In any case Eggsy had moved around the boor with practiced surrender, carefully judged so as not to get his back up with rebellion but with a weary carelessness that told Harry, at least, that Eggsy wasn't truly hearing anything said to him, only listening for warning signs of the tone becoming threatening instead of merely cruel. 

Redin had spent most of the day in his - Eggsy's - room. They weren't doing this a moment before time. 

“Hi,” Eggsy said. He lingered in the doorway for a moment and then stepped back so Harry could come in. Harry passed his gaze around the room without comment. It looked worse in person than it did on the bug, where the generous proportions of the room were more obvious and the dingy wallpaper and small shabbiness of the furnishings weren't so clear. The smell of cigarette smoke didn't help. Harry could see easily how it could have been a pleasant, cosy home; or even that it had been, once, and hadn't even changed deliberately, but through lack of will and care had been allowed to fade like greying hair and unshined shoes and a suit that had been fashionable the previous decade. 

All this he took in over one smooth, rapid glance: he wasn’t going to embarrass Eggsy by seeming to notice anything at all. He said, “Everything all right? How's the shoulder?”

“Yeah, all right,” Eggsy said, casually dismissing the stamp of tiredness and pain Harry could see in the purple shadows under his eyes and the deliberate way he held himself. He looked out of the door nervously before he closed it behind Harry. “Did you hear, yeah, they definitely ain’t coming back?”

“Our Met colleagues ordered the raid as I pulled up,” he said reassuringly. “Nobody will be allowed to leave for an hour at least. Baker won’t risk drawing attention when it doesn’t have anything to do with him.”

“This is what they’re talking about, you know,” Eggsy said; Harry could hear the effort that stopped his voice from shaking. “Like - planning. It’s definitely - I mean, I knew when I seen all that shit in his room, but - they’re actually gonna fucking - _blow shit up_ , Harry, innit, _people_ -”

“Eggsy,” he said. He kept his voice soft and even, ducked to catch Eggsy’s eye. “It’s not going to happen. All right? We’re going to stop it. Just take me through, all right? That’s all you need do. It’s under control.”

Eggsy firmed up his mouth and nodded. He still looked devastated, unhappiness in the tightness of his eyes, and Harry clapped a hand gently on his unhurt shoulder for a moment as he followed Eggsy through to the bedroom.

Redin hadn’t made much of a stamp on it: it was still very much the bedroom of a teenage boy, albeit a tidy version, games consoles and books littered on the surfaces, a football scarf draped over the mirror, carefully chosen posters on the walls. There were a couple of conspicuous gaps in the photos of Eggsy and his mum, an older woman who was probably his grandmother, Eggsy with his mates. Harry’s mind automatically filled them in with the image of a young man in uniform. Eggsy wouldn’t have wanted his father overlooked by the kind of man Redin was.

Eggsy was watching him. He looked flustered when Harry looked back, and said, “All the shit was in the wardrobe, in the week.”

“How’s he been, as a houseguest?” Harry said. He reached up to his glasses and tapped them on; Billy said, _hello, Galahad_ , in his ear, warm and a little abstracted. Harry could picture him, wearing a headset and sitting with a cup of tea in the delicate china he preferred and his gaze fixed on the screen, Merlin hovering just beyond.

“Not bad, considering,” Eggsy said. He looked up from on his knees in front of the wardrobe and gave Harry a little quirk of a smile, ironic. “He’s still mental, but he ain’t no bother. Bloody Dean been behaving, an’ all.”

“Every cloud, I suppose,” Harry said. Eggsy was half-hidden by the wardrobe door, but Harry knew from his increasingly frantic movements what he was about to say. 

“It's gone,” Eggsy said blankly, staring up at Harry, half-beseeching and half-terrified. “It was here, swear, it's gone, all of it -”

“It's all right,” Harry said firmly. “Where was it?”

“In his suitcase, here,” Eggsy said. He seemed to pick up Harry's calmness, good boy, heaving a deep breath and then visibly getting a grip on himself. “Here on the bottom. It was locked but only one of them ones out a cracker, it was dead easy to get in.”

“He wouldn't have known?” Harry said. Christ, what a risk, bloody James. 

“No,” Eggsy said with convincingly dismissive confidence. “I'm good at that.”

“Okay.” Harry stepped up to him, knelt and looked into the wardrobe himself, opening the door wide to let as much light as possible filter in from the feeble bulb. The suitcase was there, already nimbly opened by Eggsy, and Harry poked gingerly through a grubby collection of underwear and t-shirts, careful to disturb as little as possible. “Well, you're not wrong. There's nothing in here.”

He zipped it back up again and clicked the padlock back into place. “Is there anywhere else?”

“It has to be in one of the bedrooms or the bathroom,” Merlin said in his ear. “I've had someone on that bug constantly since Eggsy found everything, they'd have noticed anything being stashed in the main room.”

“We need to search the rest of this room and Baker’s bedroom,” Harry said to Eggsy. “Does Baker take things in and out of the flat often? In hold-alls or cases?”

“Yeah,” Eggsy said, his eyes big and remorseful. “Electronics and fags and shit. Takes them down the pub to flog.”

“Damn it,” Merlin said. “He's right. Stella made a note yesterday, Baker left with a hold-all about 2pm. She didn't alert because it's within the parameters of his normal behaviour.”

Harry didn't say _fuck_ , which he would have liked to. Eggsy was looking at him with a tense, unhappy expression; it wasn't his fault, and there was no point making him feel worse. 

He said to Eggsy, “It looks like they have moved everything out of the flat, but we need to make sure. Do you want to take in here, or Baker’s room?”

The familiar objection of his mother's privacy crossed Eggsy's face, followed in very short order by brief panic. Just as Harry was about to explain that he had been a young man once, too, thank you, and certainly had no intentions of passing judgement on anything he might find here of a personal leisure nature, Eggsy firmed up his mouth and said, “You do his room, I'll do here.”

“Try not to disturb anything,” Harry said. “There mustn't be any sign we were here.”

“Yeah, I ain't stupid,” Eggsy said; the vibrating note of anxiety in his voice took any bite out of it. “Get on with it.”

Baker’s room was clean, as expected, or at least of bomb components. Michelle Baker seemed to be a bit of a hoarder and Harry rummaged through carelessly crumpled clothes, tangled jewellery, boxes of photos and souvenirs, rolls of wrapping paper and stashed hairdryers, the accumulated tat of a tired small life, before admitting there probably wasn't bloody room for anything else. 

“They can't drag out the raid much longer,” Merlin cautioned him. “They're going to need to start letting people leave in the next few minutes.”

“Understood,” he said. “Sorry to waste your time, Bedivere.”

“It's all right,” came the sanguine answer. “I'll just toddle off home, then, Merlin. Midsomer Murders is on at ten.”

He rejoined Eggsy in the hall and took the glum shake of his head on the chin. 

“Now what?” Eggsy said. 

“We don't despair,” Harry said firmly. “This would have been the best way to tackle this, but it's by no means the only way. But right now, I have to leave. Your stepfather will be home soon. Can you act normally?”

Eggsy started to front up, indignant; Harry kept a steady eye on him and he deflated back into disappointed, frightened young man. “I'll go round a mate’s.”

“Good,” Harry said. He touched Eggsy's shoulder and felt Eggsy relax under his hand. “Keep your phone on you and charged. I'll be in touch in the next day or two, and you know how to get hold of me. At any time, Eggsy. Even if you think it's small. All right?”

A quick sharp nod and Harry showed himself out. He stopped just before the front door and assumed the persona, Harry Morgan settling on him like a comfortable coat: recently extravagantly sexually satisfied, dim and eager, puppyishly adoring of his young prostitute. He opened the door and turned and Eggsy was playing his part too, hiding sullenness badly, prickly and mostly interested in the notes Harry palmed him, clumsy and obvious to anyone who might have been watching, as they took their leave. 

***

The glasses vibrated gently against his temple and Harry switched his spatula to the other hand and accepted the communication. 

“Next steps,” Merlin announced. 

“Good Lord. It's eleven in the morning on a Sunday, you're not still in the office?”

“No,” Merlin said irritably. “I'm at home.”

“I’m astounded you remembered where it was,” Harry said. 

“There was a pint of milk in the fridge a month old,” Merlin admitted. “The whole kitchen stinks. Stop laughing.”

“Sorry,” Harry said. “What do you want? I'm trying to have breakfast.”

“Tomorrow's meeting with Asher and Stephens was supposed to be the victory parade and we’re going to have to post-mortem.”

“There's nothing to post-mortem. The components were gone, we couldn't have been expected to have known that. Can't we discuss this tomorrow?”

“Fine.”

“So there's something else,” Harry said. “Look, my bacon is burning. Do you want to meet up later? I was going to go to the seafarers thing at the British Museum.”

“Er, no,” Merlin said, in a way that suggested he was about to make himself unwelcome. “It’ll only take a minute.”

“Oh dear, it is bad,” Harry said. He dropped his bacon carefully on some kitchen roll to blot off the grease and started buttering the toast. “Is it more impertinent commentary on the subject of Eggsy?”

“Yes,” Merlin said. “You're very fond of him, Harry.”

“We’ve been through this,” Harry said. “You do recall, you took me off the operation, and let James fuck it all up, and now I'm back making some actual progress. Was that all?”

“Harry. What happens after all this is over?”

Harry arranged the bacon on the toast, added HP sauce and squashed the other round on top. He said, “I don't know.”

***

Asher blew in the next morning like a sunny day in December, short and glittering and cold. Harry slanted a glance at Merlin, who was looking pinched around the eyes and mouth: he'd been the one to send the email yesterday about the components, and likely shortly a device, being out in the world. 

Stephens barely waited to get the pleasantries out of the way before he started, “After Saturday’s failure -” 

“Excuse me,” Asher said crisply. “In fact Saturday was very much not a failure. One part may have been -” (she cast a disdainful look at Harry that he did not appreciate, and only Merlin’s pen digging into his thigh prevented him from telling her so.) “- but my officers took up one of Baker’s gang during the raid and we’ve made strides. My team are preparing the paperwork for arrests as we speak.”

“I'm sorry?” Merlin said. Harry approved of the instinct to go onto the attack, and settled back again. “I don't believe we’d discussed any such thing. The raid was supposed to be a cover.”

“They caught him doing coke in the gents,” she said impatiently. “They could hardly avoid taking him up. While being questioned he was gently encouraged to share anything that might be burdening his thoughts, and yesterday afternoon he obliged.”

“He told you the plans?” Harry said, with the politest touch of disbelief he could manage. “Just like that? You're sure he's legitimate?”

“He was motivated. It'd be a long stretch for him this time,” she said with satisfaction. “Scanlon, his name is, previous as long as your arm and there was enough on him to supply half of south London.”

Harry called to mind the directory Eggsy had given them, back at the beginning. There had been a Keith Scanlon on it; he could remember Eggsy's voice, still shaking a little, but steadily reciting names, addresses, opinions. Scanlon had been near the end of the list, almost an afterthought. Not one of the inner circle. 

“I want to run this past Eggsy,” he said. “What makes you sure this is solid information?”

“For God’s sake, Agent Galahad,” Stephens snapped. “What's more reliable, a seventeen year old rentboy, or a man’s desire to keep himself out of prison?”

“If we think Unwin’s unreliable then why are we even here?” Merlin said. “Galahad is only suggesting a second opinion. Aren't you, Galahad?”

“Yes,” Harry said. He dismissed Stephens from his attention entirely, addressing it straight to Asher. “Surely there's no issue with my attempting to corroborate.”

Stephens made a choked noise of offense being roundly taken, but she ignored him as well. “Feel free.”

“What's he told you?” Merlin prompted. 

“Wednesday,” she said. “He doesn't know exactly what's planned, but he knows it's ‘big’.”

“Why Wednesday?” Merlin said, frowning faintly. “Thousands of people move through Hammersmith. They can't possibly keep the chaos to their targets.”

“Who cares?” she said impatiently. “These are mere details. As soon as I get back to the office I'll be signing off an operational approach.”

“What kind of operation?” Stephens said. “We don't even know where.”

“We’re still working on Scanlon,” she said with vicious satisfaction. “Judge granted 96 hours on the basis he was supplying. That gave him a shock, I've no doubt he'll be feeling talkative. We are on a schedule, though, gentleman, so if you're so keen to contact Unwin…”

“I'll ring him now,” Harry said shortly, pushing back from the table. “I'll have more coffee brought in, I shan't be long.”

He stepped out into the hall and pulled out his mobile, then reconsidered and stepped into one of the offices down the corridor. Arthur preferred to be based here in the shop rather than make the journey out to the estate, but other than that the rooms here often went unused and Harry noticed with some disapproval that the office had an unaired, slightly musty scent to it. 

He let it ring a few times, hung up and waited a minute, then tried again. This time Eggsy picked up handily. “Yeah?”

“Can you talk?” Harry said, without bothering with any of the pleasantries. 

“Yeah,” Eggsy said, unhesitating; there were too many traffic sounds around him to be in the flat. 

“At the pub, on Saturday,” Harry said, choosing the information carefully, “the police picked up a man. For drugs.”

“Scanners?” Eggsy said. “Yeah, I heard Scanners got done. Good fucking riddance. Tell ‘em to throw away the key.”

“He’s given them some information.” Harry brushed a thin layer of dust off the desk chair, made a note to himself to talk to Christopher about the cleaning, and sat down.

“About - you know?” Eggsy said. He sounded surprised. “‘Cause, Dean don’t like him much, and he don’t like Dean.”

“So it’s not good information,” Harry surmised. “Anything he’s said - he may not actually know anything at all.”

“I don’t know about that,” Eggsy said. “I mean, he’s good mates with some of the other boys. I dunno what he might know.” He trailed off. Harry recognised a thinking silence when he heard one; he stayed quiet, and after a few moments Eggsy said slowly, “Dean moved all that bomb stuff, yeah. Scanners has this lock-up, up on the Elephant - he runs bikes, his missus hates it, he ain’t allowed them round here, anyway, though, he’d probably let Dean use it for a few days, if Dean asked -”

“Where?” Harry said. “Do you know the address?”

Eggsy didn’t know the address, but he knew where it was. Harry found pen and paper and wrote down directions as Eggsy rolled them off, as smooth as if he were replaying a specific journey in his mind as he spoke. Harry finished off with a brief sketch of the map he thought Eggsy was describing, the walk from the junction, and took a quick photo of it and sent it off to Eggsy.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Eggsy said. “I could - go down there if you want, meet you, or - someone else -”

He sounded reluctant; probably Harry’s mention of the police being involved. Being seen with officers would be far worse than being seen with an older man most would assume to be a client.

“No,” Harry said firmly. The phone, which looked like an iPhone and was in fact Kingsman proprietary technology and even now a good year ahead, was sensitive enough to catch Eggsy’s slow breath out. “No, Eggsy. I don’t want you getting any more involved than you have been.”

Eggsy said, “Yeah, and I don’t want to be, bruv, right, but. Redin’s in my house, innit, and - and Dean.”

“No,” Harry said again. “Just this is great.”

“Okay,” Eggsy said, then, tentatively, “what happens now?”

Harry looked at his little map, back in the direction of the boardroom. He’d present this information to Asher and Stephens, they would doubt it, there would be a polite argument, and in the end they would capitulate; Asher would send someone to cover the lock-up, and they would catch the would-be bombers, and if there really was a would-be bomb there and a man willing to say who'd put it there it would provide all the evidence needed to put everyone included Redin and Baker away for a very long time, and no need for Eggsy to ever be connected to it.

He said, “I’m not sure. I’ll be in touch.”


	17. Chapter 17

Harry spent the rest of the day hanging around the shop. He had a disquieted feeling that put him unpleasantly off his lunchtime sandwich and meant something in him rebelled when he so much as thought about getting into the shuttle and being an hour away from London, like the sight of a dangerously red sky in the early dawn. Merlin caught his mood, called him a bad-tempered old sod, and went off to the house; Christopher caught his mood and put him to work on a baste for the jacket of a Japanese businessman, soothingly classically styled.

Asher sent them an update at the end of the day. It was unbelievably tedious, all the paperwork and bureaucracy and procedure of working with the police: if Kingsman were working alone they’d have spirited Redin away somewhere by now, offered him a chance to use his skills for good or a quick death, and as for the filthy lowlife that was Dean Baker, he’d have been simply crushed beneath one shiny Oxford.

As it was Scanlon had admitted to storing ‘some shit’ for Baker in his lock-up, but claimed - apparently believably - not to know what; he’d been released without charge, on the heavy suggestion that he might like to sit quietly at home for a few days and think about what he’d done. She’d instituted a twenty-four police watch on the lock-up, a SWAT team waiting at the nearest police station, and a heavier than usual police presence in Eggsy’s area, with hourly patrols through the estate; she hadn’t said that, but Harry knew because Eggsy called him.

“There’s fucking rozzers _everywhere_ ,” was the opener, sour and not a little aggressive; he sounded muffled, a little afraid.

“Is Baker seeming spooked?” Harry said. The mainstream security forces had so little sense of bloody subtlety; bulls in a china shop had nothing on it. “Redin? Both?”

“Maybe. Yeah. I don’t know,” Eggsy said. “Everyone knows Scanners just got let out, nothing doing, Dean went round there but he was out, he’s fucking furious.”

“Shit,” Harry said. Then his ears put together what he was hearing with his brain, the way Eggsy sounded, the resigned dull way he talked about Baker’s anger. “Did he hurt you? Eggsy, are you all right?”

“I’m all right,” Eggsy said, which wasn’t actually an answer to whether Baker had harmed him.

“Get out for the night,” Harry said impulsively. “Stay with a friend. Or -” he didn’t have to finish that off; he could almost feel Eggsy’s longing for Harry’s peaceful, neat little house.

“No,” Eggsy said. “I should stay here.”

“Should doesn’t come into it,” Harry said sharply. “Do _not_ put yourself at risk, Eggsy.”

“S’nothing new,” Eggsy said, sounding distracted. “I got to go, Harry.”

He said again, “ _Eggsy_ ,” to the silence of a dropped call.

***

Eggsy didn’t turn up, or even ring back. Harry lay awake for most of the night, less with worry than with the tension of an operation coming to the cusp, like an old racehorse who knew when competition time arrived. At six he got up and got dressed, and then rang James, less because misery loved company than because misery took sanctimonious pleasure in making others suffer.

A woman said, groggily, “Yes, hello?”

“Hello,” Harry said, reconsidering at the very last moment saying, hello Savannah, just in case; he didn’t mind offending James, but his lady friends were another story. “Is James there?”

“Well, he’s just asleep, since it’s six in the morning,” said the young lady. “Is that - Harry, is that you?”

“It is,” he said cheerfully, confirmed. “Savannah? Can you wake him for me, please?”

There was a sustained grumble and quiet negotiation on the other end of the line. Harry went downstairs and started making coffee and toast.

“ _What_ ,” James said unhappily.

“Good morning to you too,” Harry said. “We’re going to relieve Asher’s creatures at that lock-up. I’ll pick you up in half an hour.”

“An hour.”

“Forty-five minutes, and I’ll bring you a croissant.”

“A _nice_ croissant,” James said begrudgingly. “A chocolate one.” There was another brief chat at his end. “And one for Savvy.”

“See you shortly,” Harry said, and sat down with his breakfast and his satisfaction.

***

“Why are we actually here?” James said. “Nothing’s happened. And this car is horrible. I can feel my right knee giving up on life.”

“We’re here to see what’s going on,” Harry said. He made baleful eye contact with the plain clothes policeman parked over the road for the third time in an hour, started the car (Harry Morgan’s wretched vehicle, pulled out for one last hurrah before it went to the great garage in the sky), and swung out for a drive round the block.

“I don’t see why I had to come,” James said. “Can you find a cafe or something? I need the gents.”

“For God’s sake. Have some self-control, James.”

“I’ve had hostage situations where I was treated better than this,” James said dolefully. He slipped his glasses on and appealed again, “Merlin, will you tell him to take me home?”

“It’s Galahad’s operation,” Merlin said, wearily, after a pause that suggested he’d had them on hold while he got on with something else. “Be a team player, James.”

“That’s the most appalling thing anyone in this organisation has ever said to me,” James announced. “This’ll do. Do you fancy a pint, Harry?”

“No, and you’re not having one either,” Harry said, pulling in on double yellows outside the pub.

“Well, I’ll have to have something, one can’t just charge in and use the facilities.”

“Buy some crisps or something,” Harry snapped. “I’d like to get back there.”

“There’s a pair of policemen _right there_ ,” James said. “I’ve no better an opinion of the constabulary than you, but I’m sure they’re up to the task of noticing a bloody bomb or two being removed in front of their very eyes.”

“Just hurry up,” Harry said.

“Fine,” James said. He got out of the car and slammed the door, then leaned in the window and said, “Being vile to me isn’t going to get him in touch, you know,” before he stomped off into the pub.

Harry took a deep breath, flexing his hands on the steering wheel, and then he did check his phone again. Eggsy had responded to a gently enquiring text at around 9am, early for him, and it was now early afternoon and he hadn’t been in touch again at all, despite Harry’s prodding. Harry flicked in and out of their text conversation a couple of times, as if something new might turn up, and then put the phone away again, compulsively checking first that it was turned to ring loudly.

He touched his glasses open to the handlers’ channel and asked Gwen, “Anything?”

“I’d tell you if there were any news,” she said; the tired patience in her voice was reassuring. “Redin and Baker are still out, Harry. Eggsy, too.”

“I should have had him bug Baker’s shoes,” he said, but he felt his lips turn up into a small smile. A quick request for her to keep him updated and he signed off, looking back at the door James had disappeared into.

Maybe he should have asked for some crisps. Maybe he needed the loo himself. Maybe a quick stiffener would help. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, opened the door and stepped smoothly out of the car.

“Galahad,” Merlin sounded tense and Harry swung back into the car without thought, trying to remember if James had been wearing his glasses.

“Receiving,” he said crisply.

“Redin and three of the others have turned up at the lock-up. No Baker. They’ve summoned the back-up, Asher wants to make arrests now, get them red-handed.”

“Without Baker?” Harry said. “Gwen, can you send a cab to pick James up, I’m leaving him here.”

“Without Baker,” Merlin said. “She thinks if they get some of the hangers-on, they’ll talk.”

“If they have time to get word to him -” Harry said, stopped to take a deep breath. “Merlin, I don’t know where Eggsy is.”

“He’s at home,” Gwen said, her voice measured, and clear, and rich with dread. “He’s just got up, I can see him. Baker’s there too.”

“ _Merlin_ ,” Harry said.

“I’m sending a route to your heads-up screen,” Gwen said. “Nas is hacking TfL’s systems now to give you a clear run, no red lights.”

“What the fuck’s happening? Gwen?” He fumbled his own phone out, slammed it into a call to Eggsy. It rang, rang, rang.

She said, “Just get there.”

***

The roads round there were so bloody tortuous, one way systems up the arse and never out, and interrupted everywhere with regeneration, roadworks and cranes and closures for building works. He spun the car along the route Gwen had mapped out for him, helplessly, the comms channels wide open and giving him nothing. It took much longer than it felt like it should have to travel the short distance, down quiet residential streets where most of the cars were parked; as he shot through he took a wing mirror out on one especially badly parked specimen, without guilt. 

“They have Redin in custody,” Merlin reported, his voice clipped and tense. “Shit, one of them got out the back. Officers are in pursuit. Confirmed the devices are there, complete and ready to go.”

“Gwen?” Harry said, throat tight. Another call, another blared series of unanswered rings.

“Yeah,” she said. “I can’t see Eggsy, Harry. He’s gone into the bedroom, Baker’s still - _shit_ , Merlin, his phone’s ringing -”

“Put your foot down, we’ll sort it out later,” Merlin said. “Harry, if Baker’s got any sense at all he’ll flee.”

“If Eggsy decides to play the hero,” Harry rapped out. He put his foot down, braced a hand and an elbow on the wheel and swerved into the wrong lane to speed around a woman at a stop sign, flashed her enraged face a quick acknowledgement flap of the hand, and texted _just lock the door and wait for him to go_ as the stream of traffic crossed the intersection an inch from the back of his car. The text stayed stubbornly blue, no signal of having been read.

“Didn’t you bloody tell him not to?” Merlin snapped, his voice ugly with worry.

“Doesn’t mean he’ll bloody _listen_ -”

The satnav running through his glasses blared at him and he took a belated right, the back of the car swinging out perilously near to a skid. He wrestled the car back under control and rocketed back onto a straight, checked his phone again. Nothing. 

“Is Eggsy still in his room?” he demanded, icy with readiness. “Gwen? Report.”

“Baker knows, he went into his bedroom,” she said, with sharpened calm. 

“Running?” Merlin said. “He could have all sorts in there. The police are on their way, Harry, but they've got a lot of resource tied up on the garage, Asher’s trying to send someone who understands the wider operation -”

“Fucking fools,” Harry bit out, as if he wouldn’t have made the same decision himself; as if he hadn’t been happy to make those decisions, when they hadn’t felt anywhere near personal.

“Oh, Christ,” Gwen said, her low intent tone more of an impetus than any panic could ever have been. “He’s trying to get out - Harry, Eggsy’s trying to stop him -”

“I’m there!” He screeched down the last road, turned right into the estate and threw the car into a crooked park. He left the door swinging as he jumped out, instinctively checking for his gun in the shoulder holster, grabbing the Rainmaker up from the footwell. Whichever way everything went he wouldn’t be needing this car again, so it could get nicked and joyridden into the fucking river for all he cared; he wished them bloody joy of it, the waters could rise and swallow the whole fucking place.

He crossed the estate to Eggsy’s sprawl of a squat at pace, feeling his shoes creak and give under him, the stiffness of the blade under the ball of his foot; they were never much for running, Kingsman shoes, because a gentleman never ran. 

The stairs, then, double at a time and sure, breath coming measured, two paces in and three paces out, the world narrowing insistently to what he could hear and see, his purpose to find his agent and protect him, Merlin’s voice familiarly calm and clear in his ear, narrating. 

Eggsy was rowing, and now fighting, and now Baker had a blade -

And Harry had a rough breezeblock corridor and a pack of Baker’s louts in between him and them.

Six of them and one of him: one gun, one Rainmaker, the standard tricks, the lighter and pen; in no way whatsoever a fair fight, and he treated it as one, left them broken and bleeding and disbelieving in under a minute, ten seconds per thug and another umbrella to go in for re-bulletproofing. One of them had staggered backwards, moaning and pawing at his broken jaw, tripped, gone over the barrier and off the balcony and here three floors up had probably not survived. Not something Harry was going to worry about.

“Stop pratting about and get in there _now_ ,” Merlin said, voice fraying dangerously, and Harry kicked the door in.

He took the shabby little flat in as if lit by strobes. A spotlight on smeared blood on the nicotine-yellowed lino; another on Baker, slumped and slipping slowly down to the floor from the worktop; and another on Eggsy.

Also down, sprawled on the floor and dragged over to the lounge area, hand still on his wrist where he’d launched a stun dart at Baker, his grey joggers dark with blood. But struggling, moving. Alive.

“Thigh wound,” Merlin said steadily. “Galahad. _Galahad_. Harry. Ambulance is on its way. And police. You need to go before they get there.”

“Understood,” Harry said. He was breathing hard; in the space between his breaths he heard Eggsy’s ragged grateful gasp, just at the sound of his voice, went to him even as he saw tension go out of Eggsy so completely it was all but a faint. “It’s the old model. He should be out twenty minutes at least. Hello, Eggsy. Didn’t I tell you not to put yourself at risk?”

“Didn’t tell me - the watch,” Eggsy mumbled as Harry turned him gently over and into his arms. “Had to work that out meself.”

“I know,” Harry said. “You did though, didn’t you? You’ve done wonderfully. I’m very proud of you.” He cradled Eggsy’s head and shoulders and reached over to put pressure on the thigh wound, cruel and deep and bleeding freely but not life-threatening. His hand was sticky with blood, the scent of it metal-sharp in the kitchen. 

Eggsy was battered beyond the stab wound, one eye swollen shut already and his mouth a red gash, more blood, a stain on his t-shirt like Baker had driven his filthy be-ringed fist into Eggsy’s vulnerable stomach. He said, “Just lie still. There’s an ambulance coming.”

“Harry,” Eggsy murmured, eyelids fluttering shut, and Harry gritted his teeth and pinched Eggsy’s earlobe. 

Eggsy made a hurt sound, terrible in its smallness, and gazed back up at him. “Stay awake,” Harry said, as tenderly as he could. He ached as if he’d been in the fight himself, not just the brief set-to outside, and he forced his face into composure, a reassuring smile, feeling it tremble with the fondness he could feel devastating him from the chest out. “They’ll be here soon.”

“You gonna wait for them?” Eggsy said. He turned his face into Harry’s lap, with difficulty, made another noise, his pain louder now. He reached up and Harry gave him his hand, feeling Eggsy’s blood still pumping sluggishly over his other palm, twined his fingers together with Eggsy’s and squeezed.

“Yes,” Harry said. “I’m going to wait.”

***

For old times’ sake, he had his last meeting with Eggsy in a coffee shop, although not the one they’d used near the estate: Eggsy wouldn’t be going back to his home for quite some time, if ever again.

"They showed me pictures of the new house," Eggsy said. He looked - better. A bit messy, as usual, and with healing dirty green bruising, but his eyes were clear and his shoulders were loose. Harry had brought grapes, mainly to see the convalescent smile, but now he sipped his coffee and nudged the abandoned half of his chocolate muffin over to Eggsy. Eggsy pinched a bit off the top, ate it meditatively, and said, "Mum likes it. She wants to go quick, settle in before the baby comes."

"Very sensible," Harry said. Then, when Eggsy sent him a disgruntled look, "What? It's just a house, you know; if you don't like that one, Kingsman will find another."

"It's just - the baby's gonna be a Geordie," Eggsy complained. "I thought, it would've been nice to stay in London." He looked at Harry, guarded, waiting to see if this had an effect.

"Better for you both to be away for a while," Harry said neutrally. Eggsy looked disappointed but unsurprised and Harry felt another pointless burst of anger at the incarcerated Dean Baker, along with all the others who'd taught Eggsy he wouldn't get even the small things he wanted. "It'll give you time to try some things, perhaps."

"Like what?" Eggsy said. "Deep fried Mars bars?"

"That's Scotland," Harry said. "No, I was thinking more... university."

Eggsy looked at him again and the dawning hope lit him up beautifully. "Like any university would take me," he said, daring. 

"Don't worry about that," Harry said. "Just think about where you might like to go. What interests you. I'd suggest international politics. Maybe engineering. Or computer programming. Something useful."

"Useful," Eggsy echoed, and they could have used his smile to get Battersea running again. 

"And don't neglect your extra-curriculars," he added. "Languages are always good. Some sport. Keep you in shape."

"Yeah," Eggsy said, positively radiant. "Yeah, good stuff."

Well, it had been a nice cup of coffee, but Harry had imparted the information he wished to impart and been sure it was received, and the doctor was visiting the safehouse where Eggsy and Michelle Unwin were staying within the hour. 

Mostly, Harry wanted really very badly to linger, and that was the surest sign he mustn’t.

He made a show of looking at his watch. "I must be going." He got up briskly. No drawn-out goodbyes; short and sharp, that was the way. Like digging out a bullet.

"Yeah," Eggsy said; he didn't look very happy again suddenly, but he wasn't going to make a fuss. "Thanks, Harry, yeah? For everything."

"I’m not sure there’s anything to thank me for, but - it was my pleasure," Harry said. He held out his hand. "Perhaps we'll meet again."

Eggsy shook hands with him, unsurely. Harry hesitated a moment and then he pulled Eggsy in. Eggsy came easily, put his arms around Harry’s neck in a brief fierce hug. 

Harry breathed him in and thought about his butterflies on the wall at home, caught forever in a moment of spread-winged flight; and let him go.

END

 

“Fiction has the spymaster as a cold and pitiless creature, but the recruiters from secret services I have met - and who have had, in the view of their peers, the most success - were quite the reverse. And many of them insisted that the best spies signed up for the sake of a simple thing: friendship.”  
Stephen Grey, The New Spymasters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's followed along, read, commented: I hope the story was worth it! :D
> 
> Next week:
> 
>  
> 
> “It was a crime in the CIA to ‘fall in love’ with your source, to lose objectivity…”  
> \- Stephen Grey, The New Spymasters
> 
>  
> 
> "By the way," Merlin said at the close of a call to discuss specs for Harry's updated umbrella, "recruitment's to start in June for Kay. Arthur finally agreed to let Adam retire."
> 
> "Oh, did he?" said Harry.
> 
> "Eggsy Unwin finishes university in May," Merlin said.
> 
> "Oh, does he?" said Harry.

**Author's Note:**

> CONTENT WARNING  
> This story includes an underage prostitute Eggsy (17, turning 18 during the story). Harry's initial approach to him is as a client who pays Eggsy to masturbate while he watches, while Eggsy doesn't know who he really is or what he really wants and there is some sexual contact between them. The story contains descriptions and aftermath of domestic abuse (Dean towards Eggsy, and implied Michelle).
> 
>  
> 
> Come talk to me [on tumblr](http://concernedlily.tumblr.com)!


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